I dunno why I'm doing yet another one of these stupid things. It's of interest only to me. So ( don't click here. )

There, now you know 54 things about me that most of which you probably already knew or could guess.

Finally, a meme worth doing (lifted from one seal_clubber):

1. Open Paint.
2. Close your eyes.
3. Draw a cat.
4. Post.

My effort:


MeeeeOW.

Ganked from dlayiga, the hundred foods that every gastronome should eat, or something like that.

1) bold those you have tried
2) Strikethrough those you wouldn't eat on a bet.
2a) Italicize any item you'll never eat again.
2b) Asterisk any items you'd be interested in trying but have not yet.

1. Venison
2. *Nettle tea*
3. Huevos rancheros
4. *Steak tartare*
5. *Crocodile*
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht (I can't say that I had the best of borscht, but it really wasn't bad.)
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari I'm allergic to shellfish. REALLY REALLY allergic.
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. *Aloo gobi* I might be interested, anyway, assuming that "aloo gobi" doesn't mean shrimp in squid sauce or something
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. *Epoisses* Never heard of these either, but willing to try assuming it's not see above.
17. Black truffle Yum.
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes Eh.
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras (It's pretty good, but it's WAY better seared. Oh my, yes. Yes.)
24. Rice and beans
25. *Brawn, or head cheese* I'll give it a shot.
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper (Gimme a break. I'm also not going to eat raw plutonium.)
27. Dulce de leche (Serious yum here)
28. Oysters (See above re: allergies)
29. Baklava (The one time it's awesome to have a bunch of Armenian classmates is the "international potluck." Because they all bring baklava.)
30. *Bagna cauda* (I'm pretty sure I've had this under a different name, but as I understand it it's soft roasted garlic, and yes, yes, yes.)
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl See above, allergies, blah.
33. Salted lassi (I have no freaking clue what this is.)
34. Sauerkraut Eh.
35. Root beer float (Dude, how awesome is a good root beer float?)
36. Cognac with a fat cigar (I've never had the fat cigar part, but I've gotten close enough, and hey, good cognac.)
37. *Clotted cream tea* (I've had tea, I've had clotted cream. I'm certain they go well together.)
38. Vodka jelly (I assume you mean Jello shots.)
39. Gumbo (Eaten it, made it, enjoyed it.)
40. Oxtail (Way better than you'd think.)
41. *Curried goat* (Sure, why not?)
42. *Whole insects* (Sure, why not?)
43. *Phaal* (I have no idea what this is, so for the moment I'm saying sure, why not?)
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more (Damn straight, and it ruled)
46. Fugu (Bleh, fish.)
47. *Chicken tikka masala* (I know that this is basically a fake-ass chicken recipe made up by English folks, and so I'm down.)
48. Eel (Above, allergies, etc.)
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut (When fresh, deeeeelicious.)
50. Sea urchin (allergies)
51. *Prickly pear*
52. *Umeboshi* (assuming it's not some kind of shellfish)
53. Abalone (you know the drill)
54. *Paneer* (sure, why not)
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini (But it's SO MUCH better with just a hint of vermouth!)
58. Beer above 8% ABV (Mmmm... Fin Du Monde)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips (Eh, gimme chocolate)
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads (Really, quite delicious.)
63. *Kaolin* (Huh?)
64. *Currywurst* (I'll probably try any kind of wurst)
65. *Durian* (I hear it's seriously delicious as long as you don't smell it)
66. Frogs’ legs (Tasted like chicken)
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis (You know what? I don't feel the need to try this. Screw you.)
69. Fried plantain (Not a big fan, really.)
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini (Bleh. Salty nothing.)
73. Louche absinthe (Dunno about "Louche," but I've had absinthe.)
74. *Gjetost, or brunost* (Sure, why not)
75. Roadkill (Don't really feel like I'm missing much, unless you're letting, like, Wagyu cows onto the road or something.)
76. *Baijiu* (Assuming it's not shellfish.)
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail (And it was good, too)
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Toam yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky (Though to be fair, it was "Men's" Pocky)
84. *Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant* (Freaking hell yeah I want to try this)
85. *Kobe beef*
86. *Hare* (boing boing boing kill yum!)
87. Goulash (In the Czech Republic, even.)
88. Flowers (I forget what it was but something we got at Gordon Ramsay had flowers on.)
89. Horse (I would feel bad. Maybe I shouldn't. But I would.)
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam (Bleh)
92. Soft shell crab (Do I even need to explain this anymore?)
93. Rose harissa (Don't know what this is)
94. Catfish (Bleh)
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor (allerg..oh, you know)
98. Polenta (I also make a pretty fine polenta.)
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee (I don't like coffee either)
100. *Snake* (You know what, I hate snakes a lot. So I'm going to come out in favor of eating them, and hope that we eat them all into extinction.)

Poll #1226040
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

Do you use your middle name (if you have one)?

If not, why not?

I wonder about this because today someone asked my middle name. It was a perfectly valid request, because the question came from a colleague who wanted to e-mail me something: Our company's e-mail format is firstname.x.lastname@company.org, and so knowing that middle initial is key if there are a number of folks with the same first and last name. My name is not unusual, but it's at least unusual enough that because I gave no middle name when I was hired, my company e-mail address is simply firstname.lastname@company.org.

In any case I just told her that I didn't use my middle initial or my middle name, and she asked why, and I, well... had no good answer. But the truth is that I largely do not use my middle name any more, even as an initial. I leave that part blank on applications and the like. And it didn't really occur to me to wonder why, in fact, I do so.

It's not that my middle name is objectionable. It's "Timothy," if anybody is wondering. Nothing wrong with that. Tim, Timothy, perfectly good names (though to be fair I don't think I know anybody named "Tim" who would prefer that everybody use the full "Timothy.") Still, though, no problem with the actual name. I don't dislike it, I'm perfectly happy with it... I just, for whatever reason, have stopped using it, and feel a very low grade irritation when I see my middle initial on things like credit reports and the like, which have that information from back in the day when I did fill out that blank. Why should I feel that way? No reason, yet I do.

In fact there might even be a bit of a reason to use at least my initial, since if you run my first and last name together quickly, it can sound like there is a minor vulgarity in there. The pause for a "T" would eliminate that.

I wonder if I should, well, wonder at my own behavior in this? It is pondersome or possibly worth reflecting on.

But enough about me. How do you feel about your own middle name?

I've done it before, but what the heck, why not do it again?

( Who comments the most on this journal? )

How would you define "the middle of nowhere?" I mean, if you were to make actual measurements, what criteria would you use?

If you were to confine it to the 48 contiguous United States, how might you define it? The farthest place from any federal highway? Or perhaps, if you were to make a map with brightness corresponding to population density, the darkest single spot? But maybe, like a tree falling in the forest, maybe there can't be a middle of nowhere if there isn't anyone there to be in the middle of nowhere - so perhaps the smallest registered town in the US, either by size or by population? Or perhaps the US Postal Service station that serves the fewest residents?

Maybe we could go even more scientific - take a look at the most recent Census and Postal Service data, determine where every single residence in the United States is, and mathematically find the spot farthest from any of those.

Or perhaps the middle of nowhere is more prosaic - just because there's one asshole who lives somewhere doesn't mean it's not the ass end of ass end. Perhaps the farthest spot from any town with 1,000 residents or more.

Perhaps it's all metaphoric. I know I've occasionally found myself in places in my own home town - places where I knew I was less than a mile from a street I recognized that could take me home - where I still felt like I was totally in the ass end of nowhere, lost among warehouses and giant industrial facilities. There are probably vast swatches of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and other huge cities that become utterly deserted when industry is not occurring. These places could probably fairly be called "the middle of nowhere" if you're there at the right time.

And then there is culture. Many people consider Los Angeles to be a cultural wasteland, the middle of nowhere as far as anything cultural is concerned.

Or food. What about the food "middle of nowhere?" I mean, does anybody turn to, say, Cleveland for any sort of new and delicious food? How about Gary, Indiana?

I've explicated the hell out of my question, so now I will turn it over to you. How many ways can you define "the middle of nowhere" and more importantly, how do you measure it?

Completely stolen from brucenstein is this non-meme but a pretty good question to ask you folks, who know me in different ways. I hope for all sorts of answers, be they funny, insulting, complimentary, thoughtful, or downright strange.

When dogofthefuture grows up, he should be: _______________

Why, I answer stupid memes. Really people, you ought to get the Army abolished, because this is the kind of thing you get when I'm without my wife. ( Boredom, that's what. )

I just paid 25 dollars to entertain you all for another year. So goddammit, be ENTERTAINED. I expect to hear at least 25 dollars worth of accolades, praise, and diverse encomiums.

...not NOW. Over the next year.

That "privilege" meme has been running around and provoking all sorts of responses, from anger to "gosh, we should all sit down and think about how lucky we are." Turns out (as I have learned from texansasha) it's not really supposed to be about privilege at all, it's an adaptation of an exercise in class awareness created by some college professors: http://wbarratt.indstate.edu/socialclass/step_into_social_class_2.htm

Dunno if that makes anybody any happier.

Edited to say that from what I'm seeing on my friends list (and various other discussions of this meme), people are getting reeeeeeallly huffy about "privilege." I would say this: Chill out. It's just a stupid meme.

All of the assumptions about what the authors think about privilege and class and etc? Those are all coming out of your head. This meme? Is a series of questions. That's all. Calm down. It's just a stupid meme.

One further note: Yes, this meme is biased towards an American experience. That's because the exercise it is based on was written by an American college professor, for American college students. If you have a problem with this, write your own meme. But spare us the monograph about how this (may I remind you) stupid meme cannot possibly reflect all the many multitudinous experiences of privilege throughout the world, etc etc.

It's a meme, sue me. Or just don't ( click here. )

I never thought of myself as a child of privilege. I will say, though, that our family's fortunes rose as I got older and as my parents finished school and established themselves in their careers. So we were never rich. Neither, though, were we poor.

It's not exactly on my List Of Things To Do Before I Die, but it's on the list of "Hey, that would be a cool thing to do," namely, hike at least some part of the Pacific Crest Trail, which stretches 2,650 miles from the border with Mexico to the border with Canada.

Probably not all of it at one time. It takes anywhere between 4-6 months to hike the whole thing, and frankly I don't know that I want to commit a third to a half of a year of my life to doing only one thing, no matter what that thing is. I'd probably be skittish about committing 5 months to, say, having sex with the Laker Girls. I mean, sure, it'd be fun and all, but also, maybe once in a while I'd want to read a book, or watch some TV, or whatever. Only one thing? For four to six months? I especially don't know that I'd want to commit that kind of time and effort (and given that in following this trail you have to hike up and down from 2,000 feet above sea level to heights approaching 12,000 feet, and up and down and up and down, so we're talking EFFORT) to something that I don't have to do. It's not like it would be my job.

That said, I think it would be fun to see if I could, say, walk from my house in Los Angeles, CA to my dad's house, in El Centro, CA. Driving, it's about 200-ish miles. Walking it would be a lot more. The Pacific Crest Trail would be a big part of that. But hey, once I got to Campo, man, it'd literally all be downhill from there. El Centro's elevation is literally under sea level.

It may not (in fact probably will not) happen, and that's okay. But it's fun to think about. It might also be cool to hike some of it in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington - I imagine it is beautiful, assuming you really like trees.

Isn't the day before Thanksgiving traditionally a nice, chill, slow day at work? It is, I'm sure of it. And yet until now, I haven't stopped working since the moment I got here, except to potty and a few minutes to buy a sandwich from the bagel cart. Sheesh!

(Wait, I did take 10 minutes to real quick get my e-mail and respond to a few people on LJ. And about 2 minutes to try my hand at a puzzle game that I instantly realized I am very, very bad at. So I guess it hasn't been non-stop work after all... it just feels that way.)

So, I like to do crossword puzzles. I have this idea that somehow it keeps my brain sharp. And by "sharp" I mean "can saw through a soda can like a freshly-honed Wusthof and THEN slice a tomato cleanly^*." What the hell is my brain for if not for chopping? (Don't ask my wife, who is currently trimming chicken livers for what is sure to be a delicious pate-type appetizer for our Turkey Day celebrations. My brain is of no use in this case. I guess it's more of a brute force mincing type instrument.)

Anyway, so I recently rediscovered a gift given to me about two years ago, a "New York Times Crossword-Puzzle-A-Day 2006 Calendar." It is deceptively named, because it's actually a Crossword-Puzzle-A-Weekday-Plus-One-For-The-Weekend Calendar. An excellent oiled stone for the often abused yet well-loved carbon-steel tool in my skull. Also I am a bad son because I totally forgot that I got this for Christmas two years ago, yet didn't rediscover it until now. Sorry, mom.

So! The whole point of all this blather was to speak of the Crossed Word Difficulty Curve. Since, as mentioned, the calendar is of no use as a calendar unless I wait until 2012 or so, I'm just plowing through the puzzles with wild abandon. The Difficulty Curve has a seriously exponentially sharp gradient:

The Monday and Tuesday puzzles are a snap. I can generally knock them both out in half an hour or so, give or take. In fact I try to race myself, doing them as fast as I can. Not that I've actually timed myself or anything. I'm not insane... much. I don't generally need to check the answers, as there is rarely any question of whether I'm correct or not.

The Wednesday puzzle is not much harder, I can usually have its number in less than half an hour. Oh sure, I might end up with one of those things where there is one letter in the middle of two clues - "49-Down Tony winner for Best Lighting 1976 Tharon _____" and "58-Across 4th Largest River in Uzbekistan: Abbr." I can live with that. When I look at the answer, the letter more often than not turns out to be an "R."

The Thursday puzzle usually makes me sweat. It's got tougher clues, longer words, obscurer references. It's also almost always the place to find the really annoying type of cross-referenced clues, such as "32-Across 59-Down was the first one of these" and "59-Down See 32 Across." The things I say when I come upon these sorts of clues, they are not gentlemanly.

And then there is the Friday puzzle. The Friday NY Times crossword puzzle may not exactly be diabolical, but if you stand at the top of 1-Across, you can generally catch a whiff of sulfuric compounds from Hell. The sad truth is that I often end up having to look up an answer or two, because man, "2-Down Up" is freakin' 12 letters, and the stuff it crosses with is even harder and more obscure. The secret seems to be to work from the middle wherever possible, where the answers are shorter. But I still sometimes end up stymied and having to look at the answers, because I'll come up with what seems like a perfect answer to "5-Across Checks On" - how about SEESABOUT? Sweet! Oh, but no, it was actually "REACCOUNT!" Wah wah wah wah. So yeah, sometimes when I'm stuck I'll check the answers to see if I've gotten a word wrong (I'm good at flipping the thing over to just see the word without, usually, seeing the surrounding stuff.) So I can at least do most of it, and shut up, okay? Shut UP. I'm not in this for pride, it's about cutting things up with my brain!

The Saturday/Sunday puzzle (which I assume was the Sunday puzzle at some point) is definitely not easy, but it's eventually doable, if you have the patience, which I don't. Brains this sharp do NOT wait around.

So you probably knew all that already. Nevertheless, I invite any comments you may have about either crossword puzzles or your own brain-sharpening activities. (I already know what you do to dull your brain, you drunken pothead roller-coaster-enthusiast.)

^*Yes, exactly like the Ginsu knives you used to see in those commercials, except not like a Ginsu inasmuch as it is actually good outside of filmed demonstrations.

Today as part of an "all-hands" meeting which I didn't belong at but had to attend anyway, I was treated to a presentation on health illiteracy. Most of you will probably be unsurprised to learn that a good 30% of the US population is functionally illiterate - they may, painfully, be able to read, but comprehension is nil. They couldn't find an intersection on a map. Etc, etc. Naturally, complicated health information or prescription instructions are even worse, and may be so for the more literate of us. Among the stories given to demonstrate this problem was that of the guy who received a bottle of 100 30-milligram blood pressure pills. The instructions were "take 30 mg. every other day." After 5 days he'd taken 90 of them, landed himself in the ICU, and died.

So naturally all this is bad and expensive for the health-care system and health-care professionals must take steps and all of that... but somewhere deep inside my evil lizard brain formed the thought "Well, maybe we're weeding out the stupid people." Immediately followed by the even more evil thought "Won't work - people generally reach breeding age before getting sick enough to need to see a doctor. Gonna have to try something else."

*sigh* They say confession is good for the soul. Maybe so, although I'm finding that it's definitely good for padding out my journal.

I'm not going to bore you with the results, suffice it to say that I should either be some sort of tradesperson, a writer or critic, or a train engineer. (The job I actually do is #15 on the list.) I have no problem with that: Plumbing and electricity are hallmarks of civilization. And anyway I do all of these things already, just not very well.

The main trouble with this is it didn't ask the pertinent questions, such as:

Are you lazy and enjoy not having to do physical labor, or Sure you enjoy learning how things work but are you in fact any good at fixing things?

I suspect my theoretical careers would have been a lot different had the algorithm asked the REAL questions.

(But I bet train engineer would still be on there. I seriously considered it as a career not so long ago, going so far as to take their test and such. If I get laid off or something in the near future, I may look into it again.)

So by the way, this is what I'd look like if I were on the Simpsons (and I couldn't wear shorts, and assuming I owned any brown pants):

I was going to remain above the fray, but it seems that I could not.

So I stand before you.  Debased yet again.  And...

I don't normally talk about my dreams, perhaps because I so rarely recall them, but this particular Nyquil-fueled fantasy is so weird that it seems worth recounting.

So (in the dream) I was apparently an aspiring stand-up comic. And I was living with Eddie Izzard, in a huge apartment in LA. It seems that I'd helped him out with somewhere to stay a while back, and he was returning the favor because he was going to be staying in LA for a few months. It was entirely platonic, of course. Dude is not gay, he just likes wearing ladies' clothes. And in any case, in the dream, he mostly slouched around in shorts and t-shirts, not the dresses and such he's normally associated with.

This was a huge, high-ceilinged and echoingly vast apartment, all of which needed a lot of work. We lived there with almost no furniture and everything entirely in disarray - painting supplies strewn about, construction materials stacked in random places, phones lying on the floor, boxes everywhere, that sort of thing.

Then, without Eddie saying anything about it and actively denying that he'd used any sort of contacts to help me out, I was offered a two-week gig (with, somehow, all expenses paid) at a comedy club in London. I said hooray and then suddenly, in the dream, it was the day I was to leave, and I was packing frantically (which apparently amused the heck out of Eddie) but I had not the faintest idea about any of the arrangements. What time does the flight leave? Not a clue. What airline am I taking? What flight number? Where am I staying in London? Nodoby knows. All the details had apparently been faxed, but I didn't even know what number they were faxed TO. (How they got the fax number without me telling them is a good question, but this is a dream, right?) All I knew was that this was the day I was supposed to leave, so I was damned well packing and calling a cab and such.

So suddenly my mom calls and says, "you need help." And she's right, I sure did! I was a mess! Why didn't I find out at the very least what flight I'm supposed to be on? What the hell is wrong with me, I'd had WEEKS! But I said "thanks, Mom, you're absolutely right" and then it turns out that the fax machine was in the kitchen of our apartment and there were all the travel details and arrangements right there, still sitting on the machine - a flight to London leaving at 4:35 PM on British Airways, so I had time to make the flight if I hurried, and I rushed to the airport and then... I woke up.

I think that last bit, where I found the fax machine and the arrangements, was the part where I was near to waking up and my consciousness was asserting itself and saying "come on, you'd have found out. But since we've already established this story so far, let's find a way to make this happen."

In any case, that's my story. Feel free to analyze away, or just tell me I'm nuts, or point out that I was probably high on Nyquil despite being asleep.