Bryan Adams Blog

Ma-widge Is What Bwings Us Togethoh Today

What, exactly, is a marriage?

I ask because Antonin Scalia's dissenting opinion in the Lawrence v. Texas case boils down, in part, to, "the next thing you know, gays are going to force us to let them get married." I feel like I hear this sentiment over and over: "Allowing same-sex marriage threatens The Sanctity Of Marriage!"

The funny thing, in my mind, is that TSOM is beyond being threatened -- it's staggering down a dark alley with a stab wound in its stomach. Dan Savage's excellent book Skipping to Gomorrah pointed out that, even if every single potential gay person in America came out and immediately got married, it STILL wouldn't come close to the number of couples who participate in swingers clubs.

That's right -- organizations that exist solely for the opportunity to provide married and serious couples with the opportunity to have sex outside that relationship. Ever surfed on over to NASCA? They list many of the close-to-500 swingers clubs available in the US and Canada. You can look up the nearest convention, and you can even start your own swinging franchise.

I don't bring them up critically -- for couples who want to swing, I say go for the gusto (unless that's some kind of sex slang I don't know about, in which case I say something else). My point is that you can't jump from allowing same-sex marriage to the destruction of TSOM without addressing, for example, the swingers movement. I mean, if you asked me to rank, in order of importance, the requirement for a married couple to include one person from each gender and the requirement for a married couple not to have sex with other people, I would go with the monogomy before the gender.

But it suddenly strikes me that perhaps that's just me. I don't know. I wonder what the swinging community would say about gay marriage?

So You Know

When I make it to heaven and Cod offers me the chance to star in all my favorite movie roles, here are the ones I'm going to pick, just off the top of my head (in the order in which I'll play them):

1. Vin Diesel as Xander Cage (after some serious gym time) in XXX
2. Val Kilmer as Doc Holliday in Tombstone
3. Vince Vaughn as Trent Green in Swingers
(take a break to reinvent myself as a more serious actor)
4. Sam Jackson as Jules Winnfield (after a brief re-write) in Pulp Fiction
5. John Cusak as Rob Gordon in High Fidelity
6. Brad Pitt as Rusty Ryan in Ocean's Eleven
7. Kevin Spacey as Larry Mann in The Big Kahuna
(retire with buttload of money, only to return as an older, wiser actor)
8. Gene Hackman as Joe Moore in Heist
9. Henry Fonda as Norman Thayer in On Golden Pond

Cry and Laugh

I forgot to mention that I'm going home for a wedding.

Except I'm not -- I left Boston early yesterday morning, and I called my mom to check in at my connection in Detroit (Northwest seems to think that DTW is between BOS and CMH. Geography, anyone?).

"Guess what?" she said in a tone that could only mean ...

"The wedding's off."

Turns out that the bride, 3 days before, while in the process of moving her stuff into the shared apartment, decided that she didn't want to be married. Came home, called Matt (who I've known for over 20 years), and said she didn't think she wanted to be married. So, "Fweet! False start! Fifteen yards."

The upshot is that I'm home and got to go see my favorite comic, Heywood Banks. Honest to Cod, if you buy one of his CDs, you will laugh your head off. I commend "Hickey, Hockey, Holey" to your listening.

So today is dedicated to my (other) friend Matt. I'm really sorry buddy. I guess the moral is ... hire a moving company?

Big Perv Bryan

You're down with Netflix, right? You know, you pick out a whole bunch of movies online, and then they send you the DVDs 3-at-a-time in the mail with a return-address envelope?

Ok, so you rate them after you see them, right? And you also rate other movies you loved or hated, and Netflix uses some computery crap to then determine which movies they think you'd like. I clicked on "Recommendations" and got this:

Lilies (1996)
On the pretext of hearing a dying prisoner's confession, a bishop is held hostage by the prisoner and his fellow inmates. The prisoner's [sic] re-enact a tense and suspenseful story of unrequited love and youthful betrayal.
We think you'll give it: 5.0 stars
Average of 4,269 ratings: 3.5 stars

Should I be insulted that Netflix thinks I would like a movie where some prisoners use a bishop as a hand-puppet for a melodramatic play 42% more than the average Netflix viewer? Am I in some special "loves really sick movies" catagory?

See? Start admitting you like Secretary, and suddenly your a big perv. I'm probably on some federal list somewhere. I can almost hear Ashcroft singing "Let the Eagles Soar" outside my door now ...

Summertime

Everyone in New England has been whining for summer like a bunch of kids on a long car ride. "Is it here yet? Is it here yet?" And, in the great parental tradition, Mother Nature has turned around and snapped, "Ok, it's HERE. Now GET OUT OF THE GODDAMN CAR AND ENJOY IT!"

Two days ago: high of 67, low humidity. Today: high of 92, armpit-level humidity.

Coincidentally, today was the Spaulding and Slye (not kidding) summer fiesta. It's a little outdoor party that our nefariously-named building company throws to convince us that they're not bad guys, despite the fact that they chopped down all our trees, tried to give us too few fire exits, removed all the free parking, and accidentally shut off the climate control a few weeks ago.

The upshot was that I got to go sit out in the swelter and have a hot dog with one of my co-workers. I've known her for 6 years now, and we've been sort of distant-confidants. Without being deeply involved in each others' private lives, we occasionally dish about our personal developments.

While I won't go into details, I will share one item that fascinates me: co-habitation. She and her long-term boyfriend moved in together about a year ago after over two years of dating. And things went ok, except that they recently broke up as a part of a mutual re-understanding of their relationship (feel free to borrow that term). But they're continuing to live together -- going on (separate) dates, discussing research, sharing meals. And, as far as I can tell, she's completely relaxed about it.

I've always thought of co-habitation as a bad idea. Not on any deep spiritual grounds -- I've just never really seen it work. But her story made me re-think. Can you stop being lovers but still be roommates?

* The fact that this post is ending with a relationship question should in no way indicate that I'm modeling my style after Carrie Bradshaw, or, in fact, that I've ever even seen an episode of Sex in the City, or, for that matter, that I even knew to write this disclaimer. *cough*

Holy Cow

I realize this probably qualifies me for a Pervert-of-the-Year award, but that movie Secretary is really, really hot.

Weekend Update

This weekend was, for me, one of those rare moments where I wasn't expected to do anything. No work, no social appointments, nothing for Monday. I could devote the 2.3 days to just doing whatever popped into my pointy little head.

Normally, I'd be tempted to give you a blow-by-blow account of what I did, but instead, I'm just going to skip to the "lessons learned" part.

I still despise that guy in the bar who's had few too many and is therefore willing to hit on just about any woman ... I just now understand why it's so much fun to BE him.

I cannot possibly understand why we have laws about, say, picking up dog poop, but no one has thought to outlaw the Cactus Bowl.

The best part about golf will always be making fun of your opponents.

Boxing such a brutal sport: the mangled face of Vladimir Klitschko nearly turned my stomach. But the primal experience of beating the crap out of someone (or having the crap beat out of you) is what makes boxing so alluring. It's a reminder that the very first sport was survival.

Spending an entire Sunday on the couch, watching movies, reading the New York Times Magazine, and doing laundry is just the most fitting end to a weekend imaginable.

Posted by bpadams at 02:36 PM | Comments (3)

Put That Deck Chair Over There

There's something sublime about carefully wording the bullet points for a talk you're going to give to an audience comprised entirely of men from Japan who only understand broken English.

Predoc

Overheard at the local St*rbucks:

Girl 1: I don't get it. What does a postdoc DO?
Girl 2: I think they just work at a lab.
G1: Are they trying to get a degree?
G2: No, I think they already have their PhD.
G1: Do they?
G2: I think so. That's what my dad says.
G1: I guess that makes sense. You know, "post doc."
G2: (silence)
G1: You know. Like "post-war."
G2: Oh! I thought you meant like "post office."
(laughter)

Test

"Whatever you do, don't touch your eyes."

Now ... don't your eyes suddenly itch really badly? Wouldn't it feel great to just mash your fists into your eye sockets until you see stars? Wouldn't you just love to genly massage your eyelids, despite the fact that your swollen-sausage fingers will probably deliver their horrible disease to the place you can least afford to have it?

Me too. That skin-ripping-off scene from Poltergeist never looked so good.

Scratch

I contracted some kind of poison-ivy-type rash last week, and it's colonizing my body. This morning, the battle for my face was lost, and I am now hideous to behold. Moreover, I can't work because the only thought running through my head at any moment is "Don't scratch."

I'm A Little 'Puter, Short and Stout

Let's play Fun with CS terms!

When your computer is running, say, Excel, and you click on, say, IE, you force a context switch. The processor must stop what it's doing, save the program state of Excel, trash all the instructions and data in the local cache, fetch the the IE instructions, wait, and then get to work displaying hampsterdance or blogs or whatever you're wasting time on.

Now, if you have a number of processes that are all fighting for the processor's attention, you can create a pathological condition called thrashing. If the time allotted to a process is only long enough to deal with the context switch, then no work actually gets done. Just as the processor has loaded the new data for a process, a new one comes in and asks it to trash that data. The processor spends all its time going from context to context without actually doing any computation on any of them, and the computer, effectively, hangs.

That's where I am. I'm thrashing. Just as I get to work debugging code, I have to run to a meeting. When I get back from the meeting, I can't remember what I was fixing, but by the time I remember, I need to write some slides for review by a colleague. But before I can really get into the slide-writing, someone comes to ask me if I'm using some equipment down in the lab, so I have to untangle the equipment from my experiment. And so on, until it's 1:52pm, and I feel like I haven't done jack squat today.

And basically, if I don't have a demo working by Friday, my advisor is going to hang me. So see? We have metaphoric harmony.

Segway Redux

It's neat.

You lean forward, it goes forward. You lean back, it goes back. You lean to the left, nothing happens; you have to twist your left wrist, motorcycle-rev-style. So, ok, it's not totally intuitive.

Really, it defies words. So, instead of blathering on and on about it, I'm going to use two unprecedented (for me) blogging techniques to describe my experience.

Unprecedented blogging technique 1
I tried to open a door. First, I tried to open our conference room door (first two pics), then I zoomed down to try to open the lobby door (the rest). Here's what it looked like, if you only opened your eyes at random intervals (and wore blurry glasses).

Update: these (huge) pictures were causing my browser to freak out, so now they're linked.

Picture 1 Picture 2 Picture 3
Picture 4 Picture 5 Picture 6

Unprecedented blogging technique 2
I took my first ride on the Segway, and almost killed a labmate. The following is a video of that experience.(*)(t)(@)

Watch the video

(*) .AVI format, 8.8 megabytes
(t) I swear to Cod, my voice does NOT sound like that
(@) Audioblog: eat your heart out

Segway 2

Not too much to say at this juncture, except: "Weeeee."

W. and Me

It appears I have some sort of harmonic convergence with the President.

Him: Playing golf, riding segway, falling down.

Me: Falling down, riding segway, playing golf.

During today's group meeting, we're learning to ride the Segway scooter. As soon as I finish that, I'm flying back to Columbus to play in a father's day tournament with my folks.

So, basically, I'm the opposite of W. That seems about right.

Painful Stab of Reality

This, from the fantastic Salon series "Can Bush Be Beaten?"

I interpret the Green Party as a movement of the middle and upper-middle class, as actually having a certain satisfaction with the way things are -- which is to say, the reason you should vote for the Greens is because you want to feel the excitement of political engagement, the adventure of it, but you don't really care what it's going to mean for other people if the Republicans get elected. It's the sexiness of sheer political fantasy. The advantage of the Green Party is that you can feel good, like you're playing a role, but your own good feelings about yourself aren't going to do anybody else one bit of good.

Explain Yourself

I was in Best Buy ("Turn on the fun ... turn off the customer service") today, and I got stuck trying to buy something that's right near the car stereo section. And they were demonstrating the powerful volume capabilities of the various stereo systems when I realized that I just don't get it. I don't get ultra-loud music.

Now, I realize that I probably sound like a fuddy-duddy here, and I'm not. I used to like to listen to Rage really loud in my college frat room. It sounded better really loud because music with yelling, unsurprisingly, sounds good loud. And the whole point of liking Rage was to tell people how into Rage you were, so turning it way up was a sign of how cool-lefty-hardassed you were. Really, I get loud music. I'm still cool, G-money! Word up! (gang sign)

But only to a point. I think that some volumes are just too Coddamn loud. When you can't shout over it, that's too loud. When you can't get far enough away from it to talk on a cell phone IN A GIANT BEST BUY, that's too loud. When the cost of the system playing the music clearly exceeds the cost of your spoilers-and-tinted-windows-but-no-money-to-fix-the-dent-in-the-door piece-of-sh*t car, that's too loud.

And don't even get me started on the profane garbage they were playing.

Honestly. I'm asking for an explanation here. What's the appeal? And can I hate loud music and still be cool? You still think I'm cool, right? Right? G-money? Hello?

I will now light my skin on fire

Which OS are You?

In the words of Triumph, "No, I'm sorry, the correct answer is 'Who gives a sh*t?'"

Let My Feet Go!

Someone's got it out for me today. I think I know who but I don't want to say. Let's just say His name rhymes with "Cod."

It was a beautiful sunny morning; almost as if "Cod" was smiling down on Earth. The sun woke me with it's gentle touch, and I could have sworn I heard "Spring" by Vivaldi. I felt serene, focused, and vital. As I poured fresh coffee into a travel thermos, I was reminded of an old church camp song that, I thought, might make for a good "Motto of the Day"

This is the day that [Cod] has made
Let us rejoice, and be glad in it.

Six steps from my door, someone (and I suspect it might have been "Cod") placed one of those plastic package-binding loops on the ground. You know the kind -- white, ends melted together, impossible to break? I stepped into the loop with one foot and then got it caught between the toes of my other foot and my sandal.

And I fell like Gulliver. I mean, this was a snowboarding-quality thud on the asphalt. Glasses fell off. Sliced my knee open on a strategically placed shard of glass. Skinned my palm. Tore my pants. Twisted the living hell out of my knee. I had to go back inside, wash up, find a band-aid, get new pants ... etc. I stepped blithely over the mangled remains of my motivation when I once again emerged from the house.

So, in that spirit, today's revised motto is Deuteronomy 29:20

"[Cod] will not spare him, but then the anger of [Cod] and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and [Cod] shall blot out his name from under heaven."

Amen.

Memo

To: My PCMCIA Slot
From: BPA
Re: Work Schedule

It has come to my attention that the policies around work hours have compromised the output of our joint efforts. While I respect each entity's right to set his own schedule for maximal productivity, I think it's important for you and I to coordinate in order to work together more efficiently.

I have observed your work habits and have made some assumptions regarding your preferred work schedule (please tell me if these do not accurately represent your wishes): you prefer an unstructured work day, applying yourself when the mood strikes you for a period that ranges from 5 minutes to a few hours. You then like to stop working, for no appearant reason, for a similarly random period of time.

While I respect the fact that this may maximize your own productivity, frankly, it makes it impossible for me to get anything done. And while I am reluctant to pull rank here, I would like to point out that I am a full-time graduate student, whereas you are -- and I say this with the utmost of respect -- a hole in the side of my computer.

To that end, I respectfully request that you provide the agreed-upon services (see our "Analog to Digital Conversion" contract) in a manner timely to the request. Your cooperation in this matter is greatly appreciated, and please feel free to contact me with any concerns you might have.

Best,

Bryan

Pentagenarian

My dear young mother turns 50 today. Fifty. Hawaii-five-oh. 110010.

Cliches about the passage of time are among the worst. "Carpe diem." "Live each day as if it were your last." "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." What utter crap. I mean, I'm still mastering the "Messing with the Man" mission in GTA: Vice City, Game 4 of the NBA finals is tomorrow, and I have to finish "Jackass: The Movie." Plus, a huge pile of work, an inbox full of email, and a long list of unread blogs. I'll seize Saturday or something.

And yet -- disregarding conventional wisdom has unconventional results. In this case, there's a sort of relativistic effect: experience is a constant, and if you monkey about with the rate of experience in your reference frame, aging will expand and contract around you. I can remember my mother's 30th birthday party ... got a new bike ... graduated high school ... played a bunch of playstation ... and now suddenly it's 50. Twenty years passes in the click of the "X" button.

When I think that that same amount of time will make me 46, I nearly throw up. It reminds me of running the marathon: despite the fact that you're running forward, mentally, you might as well be running indefinitely. Mile markers pass, but they don't make a dent. What's 7/26? Less than a third? You still have FOREVER to go.

But then, at one point, you turn a bend, and suddenly you see the Boston skyline and you have a profound thought: "Holy shit." Even though you've always known the finish line was out there, suddenly you realize there's light bouncing off of it and hitting your retina directly. The end, which was always sort of a joke, is staring you right in your goddamn face. You can now see the foreseeable. The line that connects you to the end is less tangled than ever; you can almost see yourself following it. It almost makes those carpe diem shirts look profound.

Almost. I remember mom saying last year, "I can't believe I'm 49. Mentally, I'll always be about 30." I find that so reassuring. No matter how far you run, you can always feel like you're just hitting your stride.

Happy birthday, mom.

Poker

During my dark, blog-less period, I became a poker legend. I was playing with a few friends for small pots, so we were goofing around with combinations of the various poker games: 5-card draw, 7-card stud, Mexican sweat, no peekie (seriously). During one of my early deals, picking components completely at random, I assembled the coolest poker game ever.

Squanto F*** 'em

Basic 5-card draw, hi-lo, with a third round of betting after a "forehead card" dealt to each player (card must be held, face-out, against the forehead for all players but the bearer to see).

Really, it's the perfect metaphor for life. You play the hand you're dealt, you deal with what comes your way, you bluff and bet to the best of your ability ... and sometimes (ok, frequently) you get completely screwed by something obvious.

For example, I was holding a full house after two rounds of betting, and I masterfully expanded the pot with another player. He thought he had me beat: 3 sixes. I laid down the boat, ready to rake, when he pulls his forehead card down ... the fourth six. No sh*t.

And if that ain't the truth man. You're dating a girl and everything's going great when BAM! she meets this other guy and hooks up with him. He's the forehead card. You're screwing around on the roof when you accidentally knock a bottle and BAM! (or, more accurately, CRUNCH!) it breaks a windshield on the street. The bottle's the forehead card. You're an 18-year-old basketball phenom with a $90M shoe contract on your first day of practice when BAM! your ACL pops and you never play again. Cleveland is your forehead card.

Squanto F*** 'em. So sad, so true.

Poking at a Sore

I'll admit it. I read Anne Coulter. Yes, she's an awful person with awful views, and yes, those views are filtered through a writing style that a 10th grader would find "neat," and yes, those suck-filtered awful views are then distributed to an insane number of people. But I can't help it. She's a guilty pleasure.

In the case of yesterday's article (linked above), she basically says that Americans shouldn't care whether or not there are WMD's in Iraq. Bush said there were ... but Saddam was a bad fella and we kicked him out, so "it's all good." The whole business of "liberals" being angry that two and a half months of searching hasn't turned up any WMD's is, in her curious choice of words, "female."

And this would be fine, except that Bush officials basically said over and over that it was all about the WMD's. Saddam has them, and he's crazy; he could attack his neighbors; he's already gassed his own people; he's in violation of UN 441. Colin Powell before the UN with satellite photos. Bush listing specific numbers in the State of the Union address.

And now it's like, "Well, ok, that wasn't true, but the war was still totally awesome." It's like if you sold someone a car because by repeatedly insisting that it had 4-wheel drive, only it didn't. And then later pointing out later that, well, now you have enough room to seat 6 with ski equipment! Skiing! You like skiing, don't you?

The really funny/scary/sad thing is that lots of people agree. They seem to think Bush just made a little whoopsie -- like the decimal was in the wrong place on all his figures or something. Or that we'll find a whole crapload of weapons tomorrow. Or maybe it's just like, "Eh, the war's over, let's talk about something else."

Anne, and conservative comrades: Are you interested in an old Mercedes? It has four wheel drive.

Etc.

1. It smells like pancakes outside my building. Seriously. I gots a hankerin' for some flapjacks.

2. Total number of people in my lab who spent some part of today asleep in a public area: 3. GET UP AND GO HOME. Or at least crawl under your desk, like me.

3. My officemate is a huge packrat, and he's just now beginning to get rid of some of his stuff. Items to be moved include:

• a dried up orange that's been in here as long as I can remember (1997)
  
• a plush cthulhu doll
  
• the sawed-off head of a parking meter (and unremovable change)
  
• a very thin book entitled, "What Every Engineer Should Know About Robots" (Chapter 7: How To Specify A Robot)
  
• a trash bag of packing peanuts
  

4. In the interest of Ashcroft's Total Information Awareness Plan, I'd like to announce that I have developed a large hole in the pair of boxers I'm currently wearing. He can contact me directly for any further detail.

And Welcome

Also: I want to give a big welcome to all my labmates, who told me last week that they've been reading this space for some time without commenting. You sly dogs.

(This revelation brought to you by Beer. The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.)

Sitting In A Coffee Shop

... When I hear this song:

Birds fall from the window ledge above mine, then they flap their wings at the last second.

But unless I get up, walk across the room, and peer down below
I won't see their last second curve toward a horizontal flight.

Due to a construct in my mind that makes their falling and their flight
Symbolic of my entire existence,
It becomes important to me to get up and see their last second curves toward flight.

It's almost as if my life would fall unless I see their ascent.

--Mr Mastadon Farm, Cake

I like this song, despite (because of?) the lyrics, which are hilariously stupid. I think it appeals to my affinity for cheap metaphors.

It also reminds me of this time Mom had a bird's nest on her window sill. Every time I called, she would update me on how her birds were, what they were doing, what kinds of crap the Mommy bird had to put up with, and how that was related to me when I was a little bird, I mean, boy.

The thing I remember most, aside from how sad Mom was when she was literally left with the empty nest, was her description of the feeding process. First, the Mommy would chew up whatever disgusting thing she'd brought back for food, then she'd spit it into the babies' mouths, and then, when they were finished, they would turn around and stick their butts up in the air, and Mom would eat their poop.

This never fails to remind me of the fact that nature is really, really disgusting.

My Poor Fat Friend

And, on a lighter note, my little buddy Roger has gotten into a bit of a scrape over some of his comments (thanks to Greg for all this -- the lesson, as always, is that Greg rules).

First, Vincent Gallo cried about how bad his Cannes movie, Brown Bunny, was. Then he recanted, saying that he never said any of that, and oh yeah, Ebert's fat.

Then, Roger fought back in fine form, saying also that he had lost 30lbs recently and that, "If Gallo gains thirty I.Q. points we'll be even."

First: Isn't it funny when someone gets into a fight with a fat person? You just know that the fat person's weight is coming into the fight in one form or another. I'm just sorry that Ebert didn't rip on how pug-fuggly Gallow is. Seriously, he looks like a discarded muppet.

Second: Of course Ebert's fat. He watches movies and then types about them. For a living. And he does a damn fine job. For my money, he can wear a dress as long as he keeps bringing the goods.

Third: Where do you sign up to make a crappy movie about yourself that culminates in you getting an on-screen hummer from a movie star?

And Another Thing

This whole partial-birth abortion bill passing the house makes me nard-smashingly mad, to borrow a term from That Chuckley Guy. He also swept away everything I'd like to say in his comment to this post, so I'll leave it alone, except for this:

It strikes me as completely hypocritical to be "pro-life," but

in favor of the death penalty

opposed to universal health care

in support of the gun lobby

or "pro-war" in retaliation for 9-11

I mean, come on. Make up your mind. Either life is universally valuable or not.

Posted by bpadams at 04:33 PM | Comments (4)

As Costanza Once Said ...

"I'm back, baby."

Well, not totally. I lost about seven posts between the time when the hacker got in and when the system went kaflooey. And I foolishly didn't save copies of the pages before I rebuilt, so they're toast. In the grand scheme of things, it's a small loss. Because, mostly, I'm just f***ing happy to have a real blog again.

If you wanna catch up on what the hell happened, you can look at my posts in this directory, which I'll spiff up later. The gist of it is: "young teenagers with too much time on their hands suck." Don't stop the presses.

Meanwhile, I'm really happy to have my little blog-space back. I feel like I've had my jaw wired shut for two weeks, and I'm ready to do some yappin'. So to celebrate (and to fix the formatting on my page), I'm going to post like a madman for the rest of today. Everything that pops into my pointy little head is going on this site. Starting ... now.