Local Language

We've all had the "pop vs. soda" and "car-a-mel vs. car-mel" debates (hopefully bringing up such controversial topics will not result in a tremendous flame war in the comments section of this post). Americans are fiercely devoted to their geographic idiosyncrasies. Soon consuming the same media and moving around will homogenize our accents and we’ll all sound the same. I grew up in California where everyone already has the generic TV non-accent. I thought I’d never have the pleasure of sounding different, however, it turns out that many of the words and phrases that I grew up with were geographically specific (often the geography was so specific as to be restricted to the confines of my parent’s house). All communities, cliques and families speak their own language and there are few things more revealing about a group of people than their words. When we invent language we capture ideas not previously deemed important enough to warrant their own word. These are the concepts that my family and childhood friends saw fit to name.

Fish Bite: term used to describe when a person's underwear rides up into the crack of their butt. The term is essentially a synonym for "wedgie" you can "have a fish bite" or, if you are a bully, "give someone a fish bite." According to my friend Elizabeth you can also shorten the term to "fish." A fish bite can only be rectified by "going fishing" for your underwear

Fishmas Eve: The evening of the last Friday in April (the last Saturday in April being Fishmas itself). This holiday celebrates the opening of fishing season traditions include: digging for worms, making sandwiches to take out on the boat and singing Fishmas carols like "Velveeta Catches Fishies" which is sung to the tune of "Hello Mudda, Hello Faddah" or (as I identified the tune in grade 3) "Velveeta vs. Cheddar." (if only I could remember the words…) I think my dad invented this holiday, he certainly wrote the lyrics to the carols.

Poop on a Stick: What my father claimed we were having for dinner on 250/365 nights each year (on the other 115 nights "grasshopper pie" would be served.).

Underdutchies: underwear for the under five crowd. Another Horst Klemm original (thanks Dad!).

Wish on a Hay Truck: When a hay truck passes your car on the highway you make a wish, the wish will only come true if you never look at the hay truck again. This usually requires that the wisher not look behind the vehicle for about 3 minutes. When the wisher is also the driver the lives of all passengers are put at risk, it is possible that the wishes of most teenaged drivers are not worth risking death but it's also possible that life would not be living if Rick did not try to kiss me (never happened, surprised I survived the extremely dry spell that was high school). All normal wishing rules also apply (no telling other people your wish, no wishing for more wishes, etc).

How not to do Web 2.0 (aka Windows Live Mail Beta* Sucks)

A few weeks ago, in my rush of excitement about web 2.0, I signed up for the upgrade from hotmail to Windows Live Mail. Today I’d like to thank Microsoft for proving that not all web 2.0 application are amazing, someone had to burst the bubble and you guys really stepped up to the plate, that takes cojones.

At work we have tons of permanent open developer positions (send me your resumes, I could use the referral bonus) so I know finding talented geeks is not easy but I have to believe it is somewhat easier if you’re backed by a big name and big bucks. So please explain to me why Microsoft can’t get someone to build them a decent web mail system. It has gotten to the point that I find myself considering giving Microsoft pity points for *trying* to get up to speed on web 2.0 but honestly should we be handing out gimmies to a company with a global annual revenue of US$44.28 billion and 71,553 employees?

Microsoft has had 2 years to cheat off of gmail and their new mail offering is still abysmal. The update seems to consist mostly of design changes that don’t improve my user experience. A lot of effort was put into making the web site look vaguely like Microsoft Outlook, they stole all of the icons and most of the functionality which would be impressive if anyone was using Outlook out of choice instead of because their company mandates it. I can also choose from a myriad of ugly color schemes should I feel the need to permanently damage my eyes. A couple of other egregious design flaws:

1. The system logs me out at least once a day forcing me to sign back in. The “sign back in” link spawns a new window. I just looked for a way to change this and after 5 minutes looking for a “Settings” option found that I can change the way my mail is laid out (ugly, uglier or ugliest) but cannot ask it to load links in the parent window.
2. I have to use the light version of Windows Live Mail when I’m at home because the regular version won't ever load. My network has no trouble supporting other applications (gmail works fine, I’ll just use gmail).

As someone who works in software development I’m fairly certain that should anyone at Microsoft ever read this post (as soon as this blog gets really famous and people start caring what I think – rough guess: Thursday) I’ll be dismissed as an end user who is too stupid to use their product. Fine. I’ll be over on gmail if you realize that if no one looks at your huge ads you won’t make any money.

At college graduation (6 years ago! Dear god I think the stress of typing that statement may serve as a catalyst to trigger early onset senility) I remember joking with friends that if you didn’t know someone's email address firstnamelastname@hotmail.com was probably a good guess. Today all of these email accounts are being used as spam filters.

In conclusion: Microsoft, thanks for updating my spam filter, it’s marginally better than the spam filtering you were offering in the past but still so ridiculously bad that I will never use it for real email. Congratz, you have raised the bar from lame to pathetic.

* caveat: it’s a Beta… maybe the real version will be awesome….

I hope when you think of me years down the line you can't find one good thing to say

Somehow Blogger lost this post.. it belonged to yesterday and I know it was up yesterday and I did not delete it. However, somehow it's gone now... Blogger is pissing me off.

It has been a long time since I listened to the same band for an entire week. If my ipod could suffer from burn-in the way old monitors did “The Mountain Goats” would forever be a shadow on my screen.

Last Friday Pandora reminded me that I really liked the three Mountain Goat songs that had been swimming around on “shuffle songs” for the last two years so I decided to buy one of their cds. My favorite of the 3 songs I had heard was “No Children” a bitter chant about wishing for the worst in a relationship (see title of this post). Since "No Children" was on Tallahassee my decision was made. If only all decisions were this easy and turned out so successfully.

I don’t know how some people review so many albums in such quick succession. I’ve needed a week to prepare for this post. I had to listen to each album fifteen times. I had to read about the band’s history. I had to know them. I own three albums right now, soon I will own more.

Tallahassee

The Mountain Goats have “song series” that revisit certain characters and themes over and over again to create a loose story that often spans multiple albums. Tallahassee mostly tells the story of the Alpha Couple, two people stuck in a doomed relationship (I handed you a drink of the lovely little thing/On which our survival depends/People say friends don't destroy one another/What do they know about friends?). It is unsurprising that I was drawn to this album immediately, I love songs about people who are miserable and love that ain’t gonna make it. The Mountain Goats leader, John Darnielle, is an incredibly gifted lyricist, he writes in a stream of conscious style that really has me feeling his character's pain. On the subway this week I often felt myself pulled out of my video game or magazine by one of the songs on Tallahassee. I felt I had to listen with my entire mind, that to hear this song and attempt to do something else simultaneously was impossible.

I have a hard time picking favorite songs on Tallahassee. "No Children" is probably the most easily accessible, the words are incredibly painful but they’re presented in such a way that I often can’t help singing along (I am drowning/There is no sign of land/You are coming down with me/Hand in unlovable hand/And I hope you die/I hope we both die). "Have To Explode" is the song most likely to make me tear up. I identify with the feeling that a relationship cannot last, that someone will make a misstep and everything will be lost and that there is no way to protect each other (Someone's going to do something someone else will regret/I speak in smoke signals and you answer in code). Eventually you find yourself welcoming the pain just to be rid of waiting for it (We roll out the red carpet/When rotten luck comes down the road). "Oceanographer's Choice" is the climax on the album, after 12 songs of wallowing in the pain of this relationship and trying desperately to save it the worst has finally happened and it’s almost freeing. The opening of this song has one of the best metaphors for the end of a relationship that I’ve ever heard (Guy in a skeleton costume/Comes up to the guy in the Superman suit/Runs through him with a broadsword). The rest of the song concerns itself with slow acceptance of the end that has finally come (What will I do when I don't have you/When I finally get what I deserve?). Tallahassee is brilliant and beautiful. If you like well written lyrics and very minimal music as a backdrop it’s a must own.

All Hail West Texas

I tried to convince Amy that the Mountain Goats sometimes sound like Cake and she refused to agree with me claiming they sometimes sound like They Might Be Giants which I couldn’t see at all because their songs are so sad. All Hail West Texas is probably as silly as The Mountain Goats get. “Fall of the Star High School Running Back” and “The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton” capture this spirit most directly but both end with childhood dreams crushed which can hardly be viewed as lighthearted even if the songs sometimes feel that way. I still don’t hear They Might Be Giants but I think their spirit is there. The stand out on this album is “Color in Your Cheeks” a song that is nothing like the sad painful tunes that I love from Tallahassee. “Color in Your Cheeks” is a catchy tune about booze and while nowhere near as brilliant as many of their other songs I still look forward to hearing it play.

All Hail West Texas is probably as happy as this bad can get, if you want a catchy introduction that won’t leave you depressed it’s a good jumping in point.

Get Lonely

I bought Get Lonely on Wednesday when I felt that no band could reproduce the brilliance of Tallahassee. I would have rather bought Sweden because I already own and love "California Song" but iTunes doesn’t offer it. Get Lonely did not immediately grab me in the way Tallahassee did, it took a few listens to fall in love with. It’s a much calmer album and it easily slips into the background. Where Tallahassee often makes you accept listening as your only activity Get Lonely encourages the listener’s mind to wander. The album feels much less sad, even its painful break-up songs like Woke Up New” leave you with the impression that the singer will eventually be ok (I stood there like a businessman waiting for a train./and I got ready for the future to arrive.). There is much more hope in Get Lonely, the singer owns his pain but only temporarily, it doesn’t drag him down and he’s trying to find a way out of it.

Get Lonely is probably a less demanding album than Tallahassee, it won’t haunt you and will only make you cry if you’re already a little sad.

On Being Thin

I have weighed about 135 pounds for just over a year now. I’d never make it on America’s Next Top Model (Dear ANTM Producers: please make up a challenge wherein those girls gain about 15lbs each – Tyra should have some suggestions.) but it’s safe to say that I’m skinny. It’s tough to write that, I find myself thinking “I’m not skinny! That’s ridiculous, I look normal!” But the numbers don’t lie, I’m 5’4”, I weigh 135lbs, I’m a size 4. I’m significantly smaller than most American women.

Before I started officially dieting in March of 2005 I think I weighed about 170lbs but it’s hard to say for sure since I mostly avoided weighing myself. I wasn’t one of those girls who had always been fat, I didn’t hate my body, and I didn’t spend years trying to lose weight. I thought I was curvy, perhaps a little chubby but nothing too awful. I was so accepting of my body that I didn’t believe it could change. I believed diets were gimmicky and futile and too many women seemed to hate who they were because of their body size. I didn’t want to waste time eating cabbage soup and grapefruits and hating myself; I was a curvy girl and I decided to be ok with that.

In 2004 my mother and a friend both lost a good amount of weight on Weight Watchers. While I was impressed with how amazing they both looked I was more jealous of the power they had. They had changed something that I had convinced myself was immovable.

I started dieting to prove that I could control my body size. Once I began to lose weight I felt good and I realized that I wanted to lose a lot more than the original goal of 10 or so pounds. I gained a little understanding of why people became anorexic -- being able to change my physical form felt like magic. I’m obviously not advocating eating disorders but I was shocked to discover that I suddenly understood the appeal.

Ultimately losing weight was easy. It took time, but it wasn't hard work. I know no one wants to hear that, it’s supposed to be hard, if was easy we’d all be thin. Maybe it was easier for me because I had fewer emotional issues with food, or because I already liked vegetables, or because I have an amazing sense of internal guilt for someone with no religion. I figured out what I was eating (mostly through journaling), figured out what was good for me (mostly based on calories and Weight Watchers points) and stopped eating crap. Did I want to eat ice cream? Every minute (This is always true. Ice cream is the world’s most perfect food. There is never a time when I do not want to eat a scoop/pint/gallon/barrel full). I did not do any sort of formalized exercising. I live in New York City, I walk a lot. I used to go to the gym and while I'm sure it made me healthier it never made me skinny.

I weighed closer to 130lbs (and even saw the 120s once or twice) for a short while last November but eventually decided that 135lbs was a better weight for me, mostly because it was much easier to maintain and I believe that my body is happier here. I’ve since learned that a few people thought that the 130 me was a bit on the overly skinny side. This is astonishes me. I can believe that I am not at all chubby (though honestly it’s tough) but the idea that I could be too skinny is so foreign that it doesn’t seem possible. Changing your view of your own body turns out to be a lot tougher than changing the body itself. I don’t look at old pictures of myself and see a heavy girl, I just see me, an average girl who is moderately pretty but nothing special. I see her in the new pictures too. We’re used to our faces and (even more so) to the versions of ourselves that we believe in on the inside. Losing this weight has changed fewer things than one would have expected.

Things that have changed:

1. Shopping is much easier, almost everything looks acceptable (if not amazing) on me.
2. I am obsessed with food and constantly paranoid that I am eating poorly and will gain the weight back.

Things that have not changed

1. I still think I look average sized
2. I still do not have men fighting over me (I’m as surprised as you folks my ass is hot!).
3. I still think my thighs look huge about 10% of the time (this delusion is clearly hard wired)
4. I still do not hate myself.

Good Morning! Cute Shoes!

7:00am: alarm goes off, “Bush sucks. Iraq is falling apart. Don’t you love this silly indie band? isn’t this worth $120.00/year? SEND US SOME MONEY BITCHES! You’re listening to WNYC.” Good morning to you too, NPR.

7:08: Obsessively check email (you never know when you’ll have blog comments roll in overnight)

7:10: www.jcrew.com click on “sale”

Yes this is every morning. They seriously change the sale every damn night. I am obsessed with the J Crew online sale. So much so that this conversation once took place in a J Crew store:

Random girl: (holding skirt and walking up to salesgirl): How much is this? It was on the sale table but it doesn’t have a tag.

Brianna: (to Geoff): It’s $39.99 it’s been on sale for months, why don’t they just drop it to $20 so I can buy it?

Salesgirl: $39.99

Geoff: that was scary.

Brianna: yeah, well…

J Crew seems to have some serious issues understanding how sales are supposed to work. If an item did not sell at your ridiculously high full price (seriously a cotton skirt for $80? Someone has a bit of an inflated ego about the worth of their products) and has lingered at around at 20% off for months it’s time to slash the price and get rid of your overstock. As far as I’m concerned it’s not a sale until it’s at least 50% off.

The J Crew sale web site is woefully crappy. The “back” functionality doesn’t work in Firefox (“gee, thanks for taking me back to the top of the page, let me scroll for 15 minutes to get back to where I was”) – I realize that most J Crew shoppers are probably using IE but I can only assume they are losing TONS of geek dollars due to this bug. This, however, is not the most annoying thing about the site. On the wonderful mornings when I wake up to find that J Crew has chosen to mark t-shirts down to $5 and their favorite fit chinos to $19.99 I get all excited and start adding to my shopping bag. Unfortunately, there is about a 50% chance that these items will be in my shopping bag when I’m ready to hand over my credit card. This is because J Crew lets anyone add an item to their shopping bag and only removes the item from stock once it’s purchased so you have to shop as quickly as possible least someone steal that cute $25 skirt from you. Perhaps they are trying to realistically recreate the fighting over items that occurs in store sales (because that’s what we all love most about shopping). Don’t worry too much though, the skirt that is suddenly sold out today will probably show up again tomorrow. Clearly their stock database works super well.

I like to think that I am not as preppy as this post is making me sound. (I am fully willing to admit that I’m as OCD as this post makes me sound, I own that personality flaw). I also like to think that I am not so boring that by day three of this challenge I’m already subjecting you to boring musings on an online sale. Reality is a bitch.

I Love Toys

A few months ago in the height of wedding season when all of my money was going to bridesmaids dresses, gifts and plane tickets Nintendo released the DS Lite. The ads for the new super mario game taunted me in the streets of New York – I had never wished harder for Christmas in July. I was trying very hard to be a financially responsible grown-up so I denied myself portable video games but God obviously wanted me to have one. Luck came in the form of a game show. I ended up on Cash Cab and had all of my potential winnings spent before the first trivia question was asked. Nintendo World here I come.

I’ve had the DS Lite for about 3 months now and no longer have time to read books since all of my ~2 hours of daily subway time must be split between Mario, Sonic and my farm. I’m very happy with how I spent my winnings. The DS Lite, in true Nintendo fashion, does an amazing job of introducing new ways of interacting with the console which have already lead to some exciting game play. I’m not a huge fan of the touch screen mostly because I find holding the stylus uncomfortable – I’m considering buying a different stylus (they make more comfortable versions for the Palm) so that I can get more out of the touch screen aspects of the games. I LOVE the two screens. Brain Age and Sonic Rush probably make the best use of the display. Brain Age uses the regular screen for instruction and the touch screen for input (this is especially well done in the Suduko portion of the game). Sonic allows game play to move between the screens. When Sonic runs down a steep hill he moves from the top screen to the bottom, the graphics stitch together seamlessly and it makes the game world feel huge. The microphone seems like an ok idea but the one time I used it (in Brain Age) the system couldn’t understand my voice well enough for the game to work – it didn’t really bother me since I can’t see myself using it very much anyway. My self confidence isn’t high enough for me to feel comfortable talking to a video game on the subway.

Gaming on the DS is great but I don’t think it’s the most exciting thing about the platform. The wifi capability of the DS is rather impressive and Nintendo has already released a web browser in Japan and even though it has gotten so-so review I’m excited for its release stateside. There’s a DS mp3 card coming soon I love my ipod but I’d also love to be tied to fewer gadgets. In Japan they are using the DS as an electronic museum guide. I recently read this article about how historical museums in the US are desperately searching for a smidge of cool – what could be cooler than handing the kiddies a video game system?

I have read that the DS is bringing more women into games. People are forever making this claim and I’m not sure if I buy it more now than in the past, however if a game company is going to lure woman I think Nintendo is in a much better place to do so than others (except maybe Maxis). On top of having fewer first person shooters and sports games than everyone else Nintendo is more willing than other game companies to do something new and it seems highly likely that new things might lead to girl things. I wish them all the best in their quest since I think having more women playing games will lead to more women in tech. I don’t relish losing my “girl gamer” allure but I suppose this is one more sacrifice I’ll have to make for the betterment of society. It’s hard being so selfless.

In closing -- DS Lite: Totally worth $130 you should get one.

12 Steps to Halloween Success

1. Get dumped one month before Halloween thus leaving a hole in your life that can only be filled by crafts
2. Obsessively search craft forums for a costume idea that does not require any sewing skills and is not ridiculously slutty
3. Settle on a jellyfish because its stinging tentacles represent the stinging pain that now lives forever in your heart. Decide this metaphor might be a bit too much to demand of a costume.
4. Stick with costume anyway since you like marine life.
5. Spend way too much money at Micheal’s on trimmings. Glimpse your future in the form of scrapbooks and elaborate tablescapes. Be not afraid.
6. Buy a clear umbrella on ebay
7. Decide that it would be amazingly cool if you were a luminescent jellyfish. Find source for battery powered Christmas lights: small string of blue lights: $2, shipping: $10. Hope that electronic aspect will impress tech-y coworkers.
8. Go into work late so that you can stand in line for 45 minutes at the post office because they refuse to leave the umbrella at your house when you are not home. You are never home when the mail is delivered because you have a job (something one needs in order to pay for crafting supplies since your insurance does not pay for psychiatric visits and how else will you get over your breakup?)
9. Tape ribbons, strings, sequins, lights, etc to umbrella. Realize the actual “crafting” portion of your craft project took about 20min, so much for filling time with artistic expression.
10. Realize that you kind of need something to wear under the umbrella (though if finding a quick rebound guy was part of the goal you probably can’t beat “naked jellyfish.”).
    
1. Wonder if perhaps the fact that you think men find jellyfish sexy is somehow contributing to your unsuccessful romantic endeavors.
11. Dig up a white tank top and silver skirt you bought in college, find it still fits and wonder how this is possible since you weigh about 40lbs less. Choose to believe skirt is magic.
12. Add some silly silver make-up and tie silver curling ribbons in your hair – TADA! Halloween success.

One Step to Blog Failure

1. Beg coworkers for photographic evidence of your costume – come up with only one photo which doesn’t show how cool the lights were. Blog failure.