Dogs

I normally don't think of dogs often, except to eat them.

Actually, I've only eaten dog meat once, but Peter has turned this single incident into a big deal. "You puppy-eater!" he accuses.

The story happened during my family's visit to China on vacation last December. Taxiing past numerous restaurants, we saw banners listing their specials, often proclaiming, "Hot pot dog meat here! Only 12.95 for a pot!"

As a child reading martial arts stories, I read many a scene of the hero stumbling in the snow, at last coming upon a roadside shack offering rice wine and dog meat. Happily warming himself near the fire and gnawing on his dog drumstick, his heart would sing with joy. Thus I wondered at the flavor of dog meat.

One cold night, we had just gotten to Nanjing on the last leg of our tour. Our guide had forgotten to pick us up at the train station and we were left standing there with our bags in the rain. We managed to bum along with another tour group and get a two-star hotel, but it was past 9pm by the time we ventured out to find a restaurant. We were cold and hungry.

The perfect setting for coming upon a small family-style restaurant with dog meat hot pot. "Is it a live dog?" I asked out of curiosity. The restaurant was a hole-in-the-wall eatery, and I wanted to know if I'd be consuming month-old cured dog, or canned dog.

"The dog is alive in the kitchen right now!" the owner (doubling as waiter) affirmed passionately. "小花狗！ A spotted puppy! Do you want to see it?"

"No, I believe you. I'll get that dish then." I turned back to the table just in time to see my brother's look of dismay.

Soon it arrived, a steaming bubbling pot of dog meat which caused my brother to sadly boycott all dishes meant for the hot pot (even the cabbage and tofu intended for dunking in the hot pot, which had not yet touched the dog meat).



I found it quite delicious, if a bit chewy.

...

Today I came across this story of how the phrase "man's best friend" came about:

-=-=-=-

George Graham Vest (1830-1904) was born in Missouri and practiced law there. He also was a US Senator from 1879 until 1903, and was known for his skills in oration and debate.

Early in his legal career he took a case in which he represented a client whose hunting dog, a foxhound named Drum (or Old Drum), had been killed by a sheep farmer. The farmer had previously announced his intentions to kill any dog found on his property; the dog's owner was suing for damages in the amount of $150, the maximum allowed by law. During the trial, Vest stated that he would "win the case or apologize to every dog in Missouri." Vest's closing statement to the jury made no reference to any of the testimony offered during the trial, and instead offered a eulogy of sorts:


Gentlemen of the Jury,

The best friend a man has in the world may turn against him and may become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads.

The absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous, is his dog. A man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer; he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies.

And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes his master in its embrace, and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way; there by the grave side will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true, even in death.



Vest won the case.

-=-=-=-

Ah, dogs. Good for company, good for eating. What more could you ask for?

London Dialogue, part 2

Cambridge's lawns are breathtaking.



The signs declare, in 3 languages, that "Only senior members of the College may walk upon the grass."

Later we visit Trinity College Library, where Newton had lived as a student and later taught as a professor. We saw Newton's original notes on gravity as part of a letter to Hooke:



My dad: "Did Newton count as senior enough that he could walk on the grass?"

Me: "Only after he discovered gravity."

...

My dad: Britain sure likes to talk about World War II. The Imperial War Museum, HMS Belfast, Churchill Museum, ...

Me: Well, it was their "finest hour". All those other countries fell to Hitler, but Britain held out for years before the US even joined the war.

Dad: I bet if we visit France, they won't have any museums on World War II. The country was taken over and occupied. What is there to say?

...

The British Museum contained a story of a man inviting centaurs to his wedding feast. Since centaurs are half man and half horse, their human sides allowed them to comport themselves civilly and arrive at the feast bearing gifts.

During celebration, the groom opened a flask of wine. When the centaurs became drunk, their animal natures took over and gave all the guests a sound beating.



This sculpture makes me think of the quote: "Can't we all just get along?"

How to make your museum the best museum

1. Allow non-flash photography.

Winner: Metropolitan Museum in NY, who does.

Second place: Apsley House


who does not but who only employs 3 guards for the entire museum (two of whom were deeply in conversation with each other), effectively fulfilling this rule.

Last place: Queen's Gallery, where the boyish guard in the last room caught me taking a photo of the ceiling, and said dourly to me, "Madam, photography is not permitted, so I shall have to ask you to delete the picture you took." I obeyed, then quickly turned the camera away to avoid him seeing the 37 pictures I already took without him or the other guards noticing.

2. Provide comfortable seats in every room.

Winner: Apsley House



for the soft seats that match the decor of each room.

Loser: Tate Modern

3. Beep at the end of each recording on the audio guide to indicate the ending.

Winner: Imperial War Museum. Crisp BEEP.

Second place: Apsley house. A three-toned quiet bip-bip-bip.

Loser: EVERY OTHER MUSEUM. I should be looking at your exhibits, not at the audio player to see if the track is finished!

4. Display the art in rooms that have beautiful colored walls and high ceilings.

Winner: Metropolitan:



Second place: Queen Gallery:



Loser: Tate Modern.



5. Make the audio guide fascinating. Add humor, stories, dialogue with accents.

Winner: Churchill Museum, for doing such an amazing job on this rule that it wins my heart as my favorite museum in London, despite having failed on every other rule.





Loser: Tate Modern. No background music. Commentary: "This piece shows the artist having dissected his ideas on human existence and presented it for us in quite an intriguing manner" and on in this manner for 2 minutes. You could hardly know that they're describing Picasso's painting of his mistress, nude, with her back melding into mountains and her rear into wind!

Events from the UK, part 1

1. Spotting a painting in the National Gallery with luscious colors. Going up to it and discovering ... it's a painting of Jesus being circumsized. Can't the guy get a little privacy?



2. Churchill was depressed over losing the 1945 General Election by a landslide, after working himself to the bone to win World War II for the UK. He went on holiday and did painting for a few months. Then he came back to become Prime Minister again in 1951.

He served in Parliament until he died at age 90. By that time, he was hugely popular. He received 300,000 birthday cards for his 90th.

Morals from this:
A. Sometimes people are ungrateful bastards.
B. Eventually they come around.



3. Paddington Bear at Paddington Station. So cute. Where is my bear?



4. Oxford: Effortless beauty is when you can pick any nondescript church on a corner, and it looks like this on the inside:



5. Royal London:

Louis Vuitton

In Vegas, when we were walking through the glitzy shopping mall of the Paris casino, we spotted a Louis Vuitton shop.

Tom: Louis Vuitton luggage! That should be on a spinning dais!

Peter: Why, are they expensive?

Tom: Are you kidding me? They should have it next to a Ferrari, with a sign: "This Ferrari comes as a gift with the purchase of a Louis Vuitton luggage set."

Me: [laughing]

Peter: But luggage is so easily scratched up!

Tom: Exactly. You'll probably see the owner going up to the baggage care person, "Please take special care of this Louis Vuitton bag." The baggage person will say (mimes salute) "Yes ma'am". Then (pretends to toss the bag casually aside) whump!

Braveheart Conclusion

We continued debating whether Braveheart had the moral right of way to knock up a French princess after vowing to love his wife forever.

Niniane: I don't know if he said the "till death do us part" line.

Peter: I'm going to check this.

He begins to watch the video, rewinding and forwarding to find the scene in question. I leave the room. A minute later, I hear a muffled anguished groan from the computer room. Tom and I dash to the room.

Me: What, what?

Peter: Okay, watch the scene.

The scene shows William Wallace standing with his dark-haired love at their secret wedding, as a priest wraps a cloth around their two hands.

William Wallace: [solemnly] I will love you for all my life.

Me: All his life! Not her life!

Tom: He doesn't say he won't love oth --

Peter: There's more.

William Wallace: [looking intensely into his bride's eyes] You and no other.

Me: Bam! How can it be more clear than that? You and no other! No wonder I was pissed off at this movie.

Tom: [looks very nonplussed for a minute] Hmm... [scratches head] ... [realizes there is no loophole through this ironclad agreement] ... [shrugs] Well, not my problem! [jaunters off]

Post-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving

Today I woke up at 11:55am (before noon!). We ate lunch at the Paris buffet, then visited the Wynn Collection.

The Wynn Collection is a beautiful dark blue room with 10 paintings, followed by a red room with 5 paintings. An audio track describes each masterpiece. There were 3 Picassos (two of his 22-year-old mistress, painted when he was 51), a Matisse still-life of a woman in a Persian robe (Peter's favorite), a Monet water lily scene, and my favorite -- a Renoir painting of a woman in her garden.

I learned from the audio track that Picasso started painting when he was 7. He never used posed models, but instead painted his mistress who is also his muse.

When we got home, Peter popped in a DVD. "You'll like this. It's about a writer."

The movie is Secret Window, a suspense movie. I jump every few minutes as the antagonist looms out of shadows during ominous music. Halfway through, I get so scared that Peter has to come and hold me.

The movies I find most frightening are ones that depict people in their own houses, being assulated by spirits or robbers, because I can relate to it happening. This movie was one of those.

"I can't believe you! A movie about a writer? That's like saying, 'Honey, you like houses, right? Let me show you this movie. It's called Poltergeist'!"

A quarter of the way into a movie, I whispered to Peter my theory to explain the plot -- the antagonist is a figment of the protagonist's imagination. A little while later, I amended it to add that the bodyguard was another figment of the protagonist's imagination.

Tom: "I don't believe it! I'll bet you a dollar."

Me: "Okay, a dollar betting that the essence of my theory is correct."

We shake on it.

At the end of the movie, dramatic twists reveal that indeed the protagonist and antagonist are the same person.

Me: Haha, I win!

Tom: No, your amendment was wrong.

Me: The essence was correct!

Tom: That's - that's like saying the essence of the Constitution doesn't include the Amendments!

Me: That's right!

Tom: Fine, then you just lost yourself the right to vote.

... Moments later...

Peter: What movie should we watch next? The Mexican? Braveheart?

Me: I hate Braveheart! When he marries his wife, he swears he's never going to love another woman. Then what does he do? He knocks up that other woman!

Tom: His wife died!

Me: So? He said he's going to love her forever. There was no clause about dying!

Tom: Except the vow ends with 'till death do us part'.

dresses

I want to buy this dress but it doesn't come in my size! It's marked down from $270 to $126.



I also am very tempted by this dress, but it might be too long for me. The web site does not list the length and this model looks tall:



Shopping online has its downsides.

My Google-Video cameo

I went to the Google video site, and one of the "popular" videos on the homepage happened to be 2 Googlers during the company Halloween costume contest.

I have a cameo! See if you can spot me:

Video.

Walking back from Harry Potter 4

"Why do they call him Dumble Dwarf when he's so tall?"

"It's not Dumble Dwarf, it's Dumbledore!"

"Oh, but he's the really tall one with the bushy beard, right?"

"No, that's Hagrid!"

monster.com

I owed one of the Google recruiters a favor for backing out of the Waterloo/Toronto tech talks, and she called it in a few weeks ago by asking me to fill out a list of questions for a monster.com Q&A article. Since I love writing, I was happy to do it, and didn't think much of it afterwards.

Earlier this week, I started receiving emails daily from strangers who saw the article and are now inspired to apply to Google. Some of them seem very capable, and others less so. But the article is doing its job!

Today one of my ex-coworkers from Microsoft told me that the interview was sent around the Flight Simulator team.

"How can it be getting around to so many people?" I wondered. So just now I went to monster.com and there is a blurb about it on the front page! See if you can find it: monster.com.

李宇春

I have now spent until 4am Shanghai time reading about the Chinese "American Idol" winner 李宇春. She's fascinating!

Chinese Idol

China held its own "American Idol" recently, but only for women. The winner is a very tomboy-ish girl with a low voice. Her singing skills are so-so, but she is very cool on stage and dances well.



It's odd that in China, a relatively conservative culture, a girl who has a so-so voice and looks like a man would win. The third-place is a beautiful girl with an absolutely phenomenal voice:





Consensus is that 李宇春 won because many teenybopper girls treat her as a boy and have crushes on her, so they voted for her.

I like her stage presence and confidence. I read an interview with her. She has a natural performer ability, and onstage she becomes a different person -- outgoing, basically a rock star personality. This caused her to become an idol in her middle school. When she got to college, she fell behind her peers due to lack of musical training. After a pivotal conversation with a teacher, so she decided "Screw it" and began participating in tons of contests even though she didn't place.

Through interviews, you can tell that she has an attitude of "I'll do what I please". It's the same as J. Lo had about her ass, and Angelina Jolie has about everything. It's very winning. I like it.

Murder mystery weekend

Last night, billionaire Brighton Standish was discovered murdered in his estate. Police officer Columbo quarantined twelve members of the Standish estate for questioning. Whodunnit?



Was the murder committed by the shoe closet maid, Monique, whose modeling dreams were crushed when Standish blackmailed her with a few nude poolside photos?



Standish just fired his personal trainer Tyne last week for designing a faulty exercise program -- was she out for revenge? He forced his cowboy business partner to sell out half of the Beef-Ka-Balls restaurant chain -- did he resent it enough to kill?



His butler is 99 years old but wields a hefty silver tray! His wife was just back from a gala, driven by the large-assed chauffeur. And there's always the pool boy... They all wore smiles when they found that Standish was out of the picture.



After learning about each other and discovering the motives ...



clues were uncovered...



dinner was served...



and love was in the air.



Three teams raced against each other to find the culprit.


After a restful night's sleep, the teams discussed their suspicions over waffles and fruit.



and the guilty party was taken away in handcuffs, restoring peace and justice to the land.



(Compliments to Madison Street Inn.)

facial

Today I got a facial from Destino Spa.



Getting a facial has some similarities to going to the dentist. They examine your face under a bright light. They poke you with sharp metallic objects in a painful process. They ask about your daily treatment, and then talk about the terrible things that will befall you (teeth falling out, wrinkles) if you don't go through a particular maintaineance routine every day (brush and floss, cleanse and moisturize).

With a facial, there's also the lavendar / eucalyptus aromas, the hydrating face masks, and the neck massage.

Destino is voted best spa in the South Bay, with good cause. Julie the facialist added in steps as necessary, and didn't push products on me.

My face is smooth now and porcelain!

Next Saturday I am going back to get my eyelashes curled. It's my first time! Apparently it's like getting a perm, but for your eyelashes.

the Met

I spent 4 hours at the Met on Sunday. First, the medieval wing, with stained-glass and ceramic figures (yes, those are women with the bodies of beasts!):





Then, a variety of very lovely settings of what living rooms would've looked like, in the Victoria era. I love the different colors of walls.







I purchased the audio guide (because Dan did). Some of the paintings didn't impress me overly at first, but became more intruiging when I learned their story. The one below was commissioned by a woman who had the romantic favor of the king. She wished to keep herself in favor by sending him these enticing portraits, but keeping her mystery via the little corner of cloth that drapes over her nether regions. Apparently this was only sufficient for 6 years, and then he lost interest.



I liked this painting of Washington crossing the Delaware. It was wrong in all sorts of ways, such as:
1. They are crossing in the wrong direction.
2. The water is filled with icebergs which would've made it impossible to cross.
3. It would not have been possible to have horses and cannons in the small boats.
4. The boats are floating too lightly for that number of men.

but the spirits shows through! I recently read a biography of Washington in Newsweek which made me marvel that history was not more fascinating when I learned it in high school! Because this account of George Washington was riveting! On Christmas Day, they crossed the Delaware, becoming so tired and soaked that their guns didn't even work and they just stabbed the British with their bayonets. They were 4 hours behind schedule. But that's not what history remembers! The flaws are forgotten in the glory.

It reminds me of how things look so grand and magical from the outside, but they are so fraught with mistakes and peril from the inside. In Lord of the Rings, Frodo was wracked with weariness, fear, grumpiness, but later his deeds become an epic song. This is the way with actual life as well. Google looks so impenetrable to some outsiders, so miraculously able to deliver innovative products on a very rapid schedule. But on the inside, it is actually quite imperfect.



I also enjoyed how the Met has a mezzanine in the American Wing which is just crammed with objects. An entire row of silverware. Another entire row of portraits. This is the secondary collection, the less-important works which would probably be prominently displayed at any other museum but which are crammed along with hundreds of other similar objects at the Met.



Lastly, I like this picture. I can imagine being an early pioneer (glorious from the outside, but probably filled with fear and flies at the time!) and coming upon this scene.

I would have liked to live here:

Prison-cell room is still okay

Peter has gone to the hotel gym to get an apple and do 5 sets of weights. I am blogging and doing a tiny bit of work.

We spent the day with the lovely Dan & Tessa. I saw a very cute blue stuffed fish on top of Dan's bookshelf, and started to play with it. It is plush and high-quality.

Dan: Google apparently used these as an physical reward for a job well done, years ago.

me: Oh, what did you get this one for?

Dan: Winning the programming contest.

me: Oh, right, cool.

Dan: Apparently when they were deciding what to name the company, they did a search for Google (editor's note: which search engine did they use??) and the only company that came up was one that sold stuffed-animal fish. [waves the fish] Presumably because its eyes stick out and are googly. [points fish toward me, eyes first] So they decided it probably didn't conflict and would be okay.

me: Well, good luck finding that company now. What would you search for, "google fish"?

...

I held the stuffed fish, while Dan & I played the 2-player card version of Settlers of Catan (I won, haha!). Peter took a nap. Later, as we were heading out to our first play during this NY trip:

Peter: Hey, let's take the fish to the play.

Dan: [very concerned] No!!!

me: Okay. Here, catch the fish! [throws fish to Dan]

Dan: [catches fish, then cradles it, with eyebrows raised, making protective noises]

...

We saw the play, Naked Boys Singing. There were quite a few bachelorette parties in the audience. It was 90 minutes of nude men singing and dancing.

By the end, I began to think I was too critical, because here were a bunch of Broadway actors who surely must be in the best shape, and yet I didn't think their abs were the best! Luckily Dan also said they didn't have perfect abs.

Gender bender.

This morning in hiring committee, we ran across a bunch of candidates with gender-ambiguous names. Think along the lines of "Jo", "Pat", "Shen".

One of the referrals was written by a Googler whom I will call Joshua. It was written in this manner: "I am referring Pat. They're a very strong software engineer. My experience with their code has been positive."

"Is Joshua not sure whether Pat is a man or woman?" I asked.

"No, that's just the way he writes," said Ann Mei.

I told the story of how in high school, I had a friend for months whose gender I was not certain about. Every time I tell this story, people are incredulous. "How can you not tell?" they would say.

But it was true. In my last 2 years of high school, I ate lunch every day with the same crowd of chinese students, mostly from Hong Kong. One of them (let's call this person Z) was slightly chubby, and the weight distribution made it impossible to determine whether there were breasts or not.

In chinese, the word for "he" and "she" sound the same, which was bad because other people's references to Z did not provide hints, but also good in that I could mask my own lack of knowledge.

When this happens, at first you think that you'll observe for a couple days and you'll figure it out, so you don't say anything. Then after 5 months, you really can't say, "Hey Z, you know how we've been eating lunch every day together, and we've hung out and gone to each other's houses? Well, funny question for you. Are you a guy or a girl?"

Eventually I finally broached the subject with my other friends. Another student, who was clearly a girl, said, "He's a guy. He told me this long story of liking a girl in junior high, and how she had great hair, etc." Later at lunch, one of the guys said, "I can tell my secrets to Z but not to you, because we're both guys!"

But then I found out that Z's English name was Kara. And Z told me a long story about having a big crush on a guy, and showed me pictures of the guy.

This was very confusing.

I think Z is a girl, but to this day I am only 99% sure.

free porn

We just discovered that we have free porn through HBO!

New Orleans

My heart goes out to New Orleans.

I wish it was easier to donate money and get Google matching.

Marine scientist Ivor van Heerden of Louisiana State University, who has developed
flooding models for New Orleans, was among those issuing dire predictions as 
Katrina approached, warnings that turned out to be grimly accurate.

"We're talking about an incredible environmental disaster," said van Heerden before
the storm arrived. He predicted that floodwaters would overcome the levee system, 
fill the low-lying areas of the city and then remain trapped there well after the 
storm passed — creating a giant, stagnant pool contaminated with debris, sewage and 
other hazardous materials. 

I find this very easy to identify with. Perhaps it's easier for me to imagine reaching an alarming finding as a scientist, than to imagine scrambling to higher ground in my house while it fills with water up to my neck.

I imagine this scientist issuing his predictions and giving warnings, and seeing them get ignored by others with less scientific background. I imagine him watching as the nightmare unfolds, proving him correct in a terrible way.

Dead Man Eating

I came across this interesting web site about the "last meals" of prison inmates before being executed on Death Row: dead man eating

Since these are primarily from Texas and surrounding states, most entries look like this:

gary lynn sterling, texas, august 10, 2005
chicken fried steak, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, 
French fries, pecan pie, sweet tea and a vanilla milkshake.

kevin conner
indiana
july 27, 2005
from Dairy Queen: four chili dogs, onion rings, a banana split 
and an Oreo-cookie Blizzard ice-cream drink. 

Then I came across this entry. I like this guy's taste:

robert dale conklin
georgia
july 12, 2005
a filet mignon wrapped with bacon; de-veined shrimp sautéed in 
garlic butter with lemon; baked potato with butter, sour cream,
 chives and real bacon bits; corn on the cob; asparagus with 
hollandaise sauce; French bread with butter; goat cheese; cantaloupe; 
apple pie; vanilla bean ice cream and iced tea. 

Prison officials said he ate the entire meal, cleaning two plates.

Vanilla ice cream is very popular as part of the final meal. I bet it's because vanilla ice cream is soothing in that mother's-milk return-to-breastfeeding type of way.

Sex in video games.

I'm currently googling for the sex video in Grand Theft Auto. It is taking longer than I expected.

...

Once upon a time, when I worked in the games industry, I was captivated by the idea of making a porn game. The game would be all about porn and simulating sex using your avatar. You would walk around in a virtual environment, meet other players, chat with them, and then simulate sex. There would be 3-d graphics, character animation, customizable skins and avatars, and full-motion video. It would be a massively multiplayer online realistic porn game (MMORPG).

...

I found this hilarious article about the sex patch, with a choice excerpt:

"The game is now being taken off the shelves all over the country and
re-labeled with an "AO" rating. This is much stricter than the "M" rating
the game originally received. According to the ESRB website:

Titles rated M (Mature) have content that may be suitable for persons of age 17 and older.

As opposed to the stricter AO rating:

Titles rated AO (Adults Only) have content that should only be played by persons 18 years and older.

What pisses me off more than anything is that I paid for a game rated for
17 year olds, or possibly 17 and 1/2 year olds, tops. What I got was a
game rated for 18 year olds instead."

...

I wonder if Google would support me in making my MMORPG. Ha.

Netflix.

I love that I can watch previews using Netflix. Go Netflix!

Couplets

We went to the outlet mall. I bought a long red strapless dress and a fancy costume headdress with feathers and fake fruit.

Tom put on the headdress. He's so tall and skinny that he looks very funny with the tall headdress.

"You should wear that to AsiaSF," says Peter.

I concur enthusiastically.

"I hope I can get in," says Tom.

"Just tell them your ID is under the hat," says Peter. "Say, 'It took me 3 hours to put the fruit on, but let me get the ID ...' and then they'll say, 'No, don't take off the hat!!'"

Eggs.

For dinner last night, we cooked meat on a griddle, then wrapped it in romaine lettuce with hoisin sauce.

"I'd like an egg," Tom says. "Can we grill an egg on here?"

My mother went to the fridge and brought out two eggs. She wiped clean one corner of the griddle, poured on canola oil, and cracked the egg against the side of the griddle. She poured the egg onto the griddle, where it quickly bubbled and turned white.

"Look how easy this is, Tom," I said. "You should buy a griddle, or a George Foreman grill."

"It looks easy because Mom is cooking it," he replies. "If I'm doing it, it won't be easy."

"Come on," I say.

Then Tom told a story. "Mom taught me how to make poached eggs. You put oil in a pan, heat it, and then put in the egg. So I was doing it at home. I put the oil in the pan and heated it. It didn't seem to get hot -- there wasn't much smoke coming off of it. So I turned up the heat, and kept waiting. After about 20 seconds, the oil suddenly all turned black, and then the pot cracked."

I laughed and laughed. I translated into chinese for my mother, and she laughed and laughed. "How could this be?" she said.

Boxes.

We rented a U-Haul on Friday to carry back all of our furniture from Bombay Company. There were 9 boxes total -- our chair and ottoman, two large mirrors, bookshelves, curvy dresser with marble top...



We unpacked a few items on Saturday, in a rush before Nicole the housecleaner came. We hauled the boxes out and dumped them next to the recycling bins.

Yesterday I go to check my mail and I see a typed note stapled to the wooden beam above the mailboxes:

   Our dumpsters are a mess!
   Boxes must be flattened!
   Boxes must be cut to fit in the recycling bins!
   Professional cleaners must be informed of the rules!
   Take responsibility for your boxes!!

"I wonder if that's a response to my boxes," I think to myself. "Okay, I'll remember for next time."

I sort through my mail and go to recycle the junk mail. When I get to the recycling bins, I see my boxes scattered all about, as I'd left them. They are large and heaped above, next to, and between the recycling bins.

I start to break them down, rip them so that they fit.

"Well, at least no one knows it was me," I think.

Then I see the packing slip on every box:

"Bombay Company.  
Ship to: Niniane Wang
         XXX Central Ave"

New York Times calls it...

The trailer for "In the mood for love",

The New York Times says, 'Dizzy with a romantic spirit that has been missing from the cinema ... forever.'

What a great quote!

Lunchtime conversation.

(Edited. Note this conversation is from 2005.)

With my coworkers. We're having a conversation about bonds and stocks.

Jordan: [explaining how raising interest rates depreciates the bond market]

Kevin: I'm very risk-averse.

Jordan: Would you ever lend someone money? Say they'd pay you interest. But there's a chance they could go bankrupt.

Nadim: Say I needed money.

Kevin: Well, I would lend you money, Nadim, because we're friends. But not for financial reasons. It'd be because helping my friends makes me happy, and that's the purpose of life -- happiness.

Jordan: [shocked that conversation has suddenly become so philosophical]

me: [delightedthat conversation has suddenly become so philosophical] But is happiness really the metric that you're trying to monetize? Let's say you could be ignorant and happy. Most people wouldn't choose that. They'd rather have more knowledge, even if it makes them less happy. So what is that elusive metric that we're really optimizing? ... Let's say you love someone, and then they die. You'll be really sad, but many people would prefer that to not having known the person, even if they would've been happier that way.

Kevin: You were happy before they died, so the integral over all time is still positive.

me: But maybe not as positive as if you'd spent that time doing something else that made you happier.

[more discussion]

me: I'm happy we're discussing this. I think about this once a month or so, and I can never come up with the metric. It would make life so much easier, if you had one metric to optimize for.

Jordan: When slashdot introduced the karma rating, all the users began madly to try to make that number go up. So I can imagine if people had a life rating, they'd all work on making that number as high as possible.

Kevin: Instead of PageRank, we'll have LifeRank.

Nadim: [solemnly] I know what my metric is. It's money.

me: [laughing]

Nadim: No, I'm serious.

Jordan: [to me] So all that time you spent considering the metric and debating what it is, he already has it figured out!

Kevin: [laughing] And he doesn't even need to calculate it himself! Someone else computes it for him!

me: [to Nadim] But you don't go around buying fancy cars or clothes!

Nadim: I don't spend the money. I'm a miser. You know DuckTales? I identify with that character, who's-it, Scrooge MacDuck.

Tom.

me: Tom, who wears the pants in your relationship?

Tom: She does. She has the pants and the belt.

Peter: Oh no! At least get the belt back.

Tom: Why, to hold up my non-existent pants?

Pruning.

I started to prune my roses today. Peter kept me company, working outside on the black wrought table and chair, while I was pruning.

Halfway through pruning, with a heap of discarded branches at my feet, I decided that I would use Google to actually read about pruning, as opposed to just going by the seat of my pants and cutting off branches that got in the way or were shaped too strangely.

"bring the remaining canes to at least half height being certain to 
make your cuts above an outward facing bud on the canes"

What are canes? And the buds are at the ends of the branches, so how can I cut above them?!

"Make your cuts at a 45-degree angle"

A little too late!

"Most rose pruning is done in the spring, with the blooming of the 
forsythia as a signal to get moving."

Hm, what if all the other plants you have other than rose bushes are weeds??

Then I read this wonderful article that began:

PRUNING ROSES 101
by Nanette Londeree, Consulting Rosarian
There seems to be a lot of mystery surrounding rose pruning, as well as lots of 
"rules" to follow in order to do it correctly. If I have learned anything over the 
last decade of pruning hundreds of roses, it is that roses are very forgiving. If
you cut too high, too low, at an inward facing bud rather than an outward facing 
one, in the long run, it really will not make a lot of difference. If the resulting
growth does not grow in the fashion or direction you desire, cut it again to correct
it. Once you realize that there is not too much one can do wrong, it makes the whole
job much easier.

The whole job is indeed much easier! Thank you "Nanette Londeree"! (That's an odd name. Though she would probably think my name is odd as well.)

Funny moments of my job.

Today we get a report that this email:

> Date: May 3, 2005 5:03 PM
> Subject: Running late
>
> Be there for the meeting as soon as I can.

triggers the following Gmail ad:

> Pain During Intercourse? - www.EndoKnow.com - Get a Customized
> Discussion Guide. Summary of Symptoms & More - Free!

I laughed out loud 4 times over this.

Public perception

me: [reading a press article praising my team's accidental feature leak as a brilliant strategy for trickling out the word slowly] They called us "marketing geniuses".

J: [laughing] Yeah, I saw that.

me: This is because we work at Google. If we were Microsoft, they would've called it "another evil ploy to maintain their monopoly."

A passage I like.

From Shanidar, a story about a man who was a rich noble in a futuristic alien world but who decided to abandon his wealth and live with neanderthal cavemen:

"And Goshevan?" he asked. "He was happy with the beautiful Lara? He
was happy, wasn't he?"

"He was happy," I said, trying to slip my old hand from the young
man's grip. "He was so happy he came to regard his body lice as his
'little pets' and didn't care that he would have to pass the rest of
his days without a bath. His stuttering, which had embarrassed him all
his life and caused him great shame, came to a sudden end as he found
the liquid vowels and smooth consonants of the Devaki language rolling
easily off his tongue. He loved Lara's children as his own and loved
Lara as only a desperate and romantic man can love a woman. Though she
had none of the exotic skills of the courtesans with whom he had been
so familiar, she loved him with such a strength and passion that he
came to divide his life into two parts: the time before Lara, which
was murky and dim and full of confused memories, and the time after,
which was full of light and joy and laughter. So it happened that
when, the following midwinter spring, she pointed to her belly and
smiled, he knew with a sureness that he had not spent his life in vain
and was as happy as a man could be.

Phone call with my little brother

me: "So I hear that Mom is advising you every day to dump your girlfriend."

Tom: "Yeah."

me: "Aha, now you are in the situation I was in! Well, still in. Dad is against my relationship, and Mom is against yours."

Tom: "Yeah, maybe we should swap."

me: (incredulously) "You want Dad to be against your relationship?"

Tom: "No, you date Eileen, and I'll date Simon. Then our parents will say, "Aiya! Swap back! It was better before!'"

me: [laughing]

Tom: "But Eileen might say, 'I don't want to swap! I like this way better.'"

Angry at self.

I am once again taking my body for granted and not sleeping enough. It's 3:45am and I'm working. I'm going to sleep 5 hours and then be incredibly tired and less productive tomorrow. What am I doing?

Biased?

In China, this January, in a cab with my entire family. I'm due to fly out the next morning at noon.

My mom, lamenting: We only have one more day together!

Tom: Hey!!!! I'm leaving in 3 days! You only care about Niniane. If she were leaving next week and I was leaving tomorrow, you'd say, 'We only have one more week together!' and then, 'Oh yeah, we have to take Tom to the airport tomorrow. That child is so much hassle.'

Tonight.

A lot of conversations tonight. I'm still at work and it's 1:30am! But it's not due to working late. It's due to staying and chatting with people.

...

Best moment of the night.

Tao: I had this coworker at Infineon who was so good at meeting women. He was an Indian guy, kind of short. He could meet someone and strike up a conversation in 2 minutes. We would go to Subway, and I'd be standing in line and turn around, and he'd be talking to some lady at a table and exchanging cell phone numbers.

Sam: What's that guy up to now?

Tao: Oh, he's still working at Infineon.

...

On phone with Tom.

Tom: This is like you saying to me, 'Tom, I wish I'd known about these steamed buns 2 years ago! I would've eaten so many!' and me saying, 'Niniane, maybe you would've eaten so many that you would get sick of them by now.' and then you would say, 'No! I would've eaten one every day, and I would've eaten 365 more steamed buns!!'

me: [laughing]

Tom: It's like Picard. "I wish I didn't have a fake heart. I'm going to change it. Oh crap, I'm no longer a captain. I better get shot in the heart with a phaser."

me: [still laughing] He was stabbed through the heart with a spear! It wasn't a phaser!

Tom: No, at first he was shot with a phaser, but at the end he was stabbed with the spear.

...

Tom: So I don't understand why she gets so stressed out.

me: When people care too much about something, then they stress out and they procrastinate! You never get that worked up about things. Well, very few things. Like, if you didn't leave enough time for studying for your final, you would just calmly decide, 'Ok, I need 8 hours and I only have 6. I'll just study the 6/8 most important things.' You wouldn't kick yourself for it, and you wouldn't feel bad. You'd just do it and move on. But people that really care about everything, they feel bad and regret, and it feels so awful that next time, they purposefully procrastinate.

Tom: Yeah, I guess I just don't get that worked up about anything.

...

Little miss muffet

Apparently all spiders in the US are harmless except for black widows and brown recluses. How can you tell whether a spider is a brown recluse? Apparently there is a small violin-shaped mark on the back of the spider. So when you feel a sharp pain and realize that you are being bitten by a spider, allow it to continue so that you can calmly examine its back for violin-shaped marks.

Alas, I did not perform this inspection.

While doing this research on Google Images, I encountered one of the most disgusting images I have ever seen. This rivals the time that Dan had a cyst removed from his arm and showed us digital pics of the gaping wound. Here it is: disgusting spider pic.

Spider.

I just got bitten by a spider, for the first time in my life.

I was sitting in my cubicle, working, and my wrist suddenly experienced a sharp jabbing pain. I looked down and there was a light brown spider about the size of a nickel, on my wrist. I flicked it away and it scrambled off (but is still alive and in the proximity of my cube!).

Now my wrist is throbbing and there is an expanding red circle around the bite. I am going to search on Google to see if A. I can find out what type of spider it is, and B. whether I should do some sort of medical manuever.

Conversations from India.

Chris: The cleaning staff threw away some of my stuff.

me: Like what?

Chris: One of my half-used candles.

me: You brought candles all the way from the US?

Chris: No, they were in the gift basket.

me: [flashback to first day at guesthouse] Wait, that's right, there were candles in that gift basket! You took both of them?

Chris: There were 5. I took all 5.

me: That gift basket was for all of us!

Chris: (patronizingly) Do you want one of my candles?

me: One of your candles?! No, I want one of my own candles back, thank you.

Chris: Fine. [picks up his laptop bag, starts moving toward door to leave]

me: [noticing that he's holding a roll of toilet paper] Why are you taking toilet paper?

Chris: I might need it. I have kind of an upset stomach.

me: Don't you think they'd have it at the office?

Chris: They ran out on Sunday.

me: Oh, ok.

Chris: [gets to door, pauses with hand on doorknob] By the way, this is your toilet paper.

me: What?

Chris: Yeah, you don't have toilet paper any more in your bathroom.

me: You stole my toilet paper?? [starting to laugh] Why did you do that?

Chris: I thought you'd left for work already.

me: (laughing) You are the worst roommate ever!!

---

me: Can we get them to bring us more exotic fruits at the guesthouse? Right now we have apples, bananas, oranges. I want papayas, mangoes, weird Indian fruits.

Lalit: They actually ship this fruit from the US. The apples are from Washington. And the oranges are from Florida.

John: So don't tell them you want exotic fruits, because they'll bring you apples and oranges.

Bangkok

Sitting in bed in our lavish Bangkok hotel room, typing away. It's been 5 days since we left Mtn View (a bit confusing due to time difference). Today we dictate our own schedule, which I am looking forward to.

Chris was in an awful, awful mood until Wednesday afternoon.

Tuesday morning, Chris went to the sauna in our hotel. Upon his return, we were all getting ready for going out into the city.

John: Were there any hotties in the sauna?

Chris: (mumbling slightly) It was a male-only sauna, and I was the only one there. So there was one hottie.

John: What? I couldn't hear you.

Chris: (mumbling) I was there, so there was one hottie.

John: What?

Chris: I was the only hottie.

John: What?

Chris: I was the only ---

me: Okay, okay! You think you're a hottie! We get it!

Later, we're all in the ferry terminal, waiting to ride the ferry from Kowloon across to Central Hong Kong.

John: We should get some female interns. It'll be like Monika Lewinsky.

me: Oh no!

Chris: [stalks off without a word]

We catch up to him.

me: What's going on?

Chris: I feel like it's National Hypocrisy Month. Like, this morning you got after me for saying that I'm hot, but you're saying all the time, 'Oh, my abs look great today.' or 'my hair' And it's not okay for John to want female interns, but it's okay for you to hang out with Mark Cook and Todor and Peter?

John: I'm going to get some candy. [runs off]

We discuss, Chris calms down. But he's still angry. He refused to sit with us on the ferry, and on the bus ride to see the Giant Buddha. He doesn't smile, doesn't make any jokes.

Wednesday morning, we're sitting in a noodle shop. Chris says nothing and eats nothing.

John: I'm actually a CIA agent. I saw this movie about a guy who ran game shows, but he was also in the CIA, and he would take the winners on these trips where he was actually hitting targets.

John: So I'm a CIA agent. I have a mark in Bangkok, and in Bangalore. I just gotta find one for Hong Kong.

Chris: You can do me.

John: What?

Chris: You can kill me.

John and I look at each other and raise our eyebrows. I put my hand on Chris's shoulder and squeeze it. He reaches up and lightly lifts my hand off of him.

We split up after that. When we reunite 2 hours later, Chris is mysteriously in a much better mood. The mood has lasted through our day in Bangkok.

Launch.

We launched today.
desktop.google.com.

We had a betting pool at work on the number of downloads on the first day, and so far I'm closest.

It's been a good feeling, watching the project grow from ideas and design docs, into lines of code, into the slick EXE being downloaded right now all over the world.

I'm in NYC to witness the launch at DigitalLife.

It's a different feeling from my previous shipping. On Flight Sim it was a dramatic and sudden sense of being done. This time it doesn't feel that much different than a normal day at work.

Maybe because on Flight Sim the CDs were sent to manufacturing and it was out of our hands. Whereas here we could modify the download EXE if we had to.

I like reading the slashdot posts.

A: "Now my wife can see my porn."

B: "Also now you can see my IM chats with your wife."

C (to A): "You are a heterosexual male with an Internet connection. Your wife doesn't need help from Google to know that you're surfing porn."

D (to C): "Maybe it's homosexual porn."

...

We already have 3600 e-mails for feature requests.

I haven't decided what to work on next. Google is unlike Microsoft, in that engineers at Google can fluidly move around to other projects. (Microsoft requires a formal interview to switch teams.) There are a number of exciting (secret) projects going on, and some of them are very tempting. Though that means I go back to not being able to talk about what I work on...

---

In other news, I like walking around downtown Manhattan. I'm staying in the Marriot Marquis which overlooks Times Square. I like how at midnight, the streets are still bright with neon lights, 24-hour pharmacies and shops doing renovation. The sidewalks are crowded with people, many dressed fashionably and fun to watch.

We ate a six-course tasting menu tonight, to celebrate launch. It was the first tasting menu for many of my coworkers.

I love my coworkers, every one of them. Andrew's straight-sarcasm and Chris's pig-sex jokes and John's excessive fear of death (and excessive obsession with santorum). Omar's drunkenness and Steve's pretend-innocence ("What's a stoner?", or in Australian accent "Wot's a ston'ah?"). Sergey's graciousness and DBakin's unexpected humor ("a pig for Bakin") and DaveM's "step 1..." instructions and MihaiMihai the rapper and Nikhil's strong opinions (good: "Gay marriage should be legal." bad: "I should be able to bring my dog into the public library! Everyone in the library should vote on it!").

...

The final tally of # downloads has been computed, and I am NOT the closest. John, who submitted a bet 3 times as high as mine, which we all dismissed as "ridiculously optimistic", is the closest.

This is $10 I'm thrilled to lose.

Show me the pig.

I am looking into owning a pig as a pet. I was hoping to get a pig that is 9 pounds, that I can carry around in a bag. Like in this picture.

Unfortunately this may not be feasible, as I found the following:

"I would love to find a reliable breeder who could produce with consistency a smaller potbellied pig with excellent conformation and good bone. Breeders in the industry are striving to attain just this goal. But a mature, purebred, potbellied pig weighs between 60 and 175 pounds. This is smaller in dimension than many house dogs. People get so hung up on the weight of a pet pig. The issue should not be the pounds of the pig, but her health, movement, and social versatility in terms of how she will fit into one's lifestyle. "

I was amused by this:
"Pigs enjoy eating even when they are not hungry."

Hee hee, just like me!

Good news: they can be potty trained:
"While pigs can eventually be outside potty trained, for six months or so they will likely rely on a litter box. Pig pee stinks so you’ll need a plan till your pig gains bladder control. "

and I love this (the pig's name is Bacon):

"Can your pig learn tricks?

Bacon’s intellect is immense. He clearly has the capacity to learn. And not just in response to food. As my fence was being rebuilt the dog had to be chained to a tree. I watched as the pig ran into the chain circle to steal the dog toys one at a time. I’d put them back and the pig would go back and take the toys one at a time. He never played with the toys, I’m sure he just wanted to torture the dog."

Today at lunch Chris was commending me on the pig idea. "I don't like pets," he said, "but I like the pig idea."

We discussed whether pigs can be potty trained, how large they are. Andrew stated that I'd get tired of the pig in two hours. We discussed how we'd then cook it for dinner.

Then naturally the subject turned to how Chris had said he wanted to have sex with my pig (see earlier blog entry). He denied it at first ("when did I turn into a pigfucker?") but then later confessed,

"The best bacon is the bacon you just fucked."

"Tell that to David Bakin," said John, alluding to one of the engineers on my team.

Sleeping.

I have some kind of disorder where I don't want to go to sleep. Like right now. I came home instead of partying in SF because I haven't slept enough for weeks. But I've been sitting in bed for hours and I don't want to go to sleep.

When I wake up tomorrow, I'm going to be groggy and unhappy.

You know how kids don't want to go to bed? I have that! I have struggled with this for years.

I'm searching on the Internet now for help.

I eat when I'm not hungry, and I don't go to sleep even though I'm tired. I don't want to keep doing these stupid things to my body. It's annoying to be able to identify it, yet have psychological blocks so that you cannot fix it.

Bets rock.

Google for "kicks ass in Mountain View": link.

Wedding.

Todd's wedding tonight. It was my favorite of the weddings I've attended (sorry Mingjing).

They wrote their own vows. Todd said, "Thank you for being who you are" and then his voice broke and he started crying. He cried a lot harder than Chris (the bride) did. Two sentence in, he had to stop because he was crying so hard. Chris reached out and held his hand, and it seemed to lend him stability.

I especially liked these lines from his speech,

"Thank you for not expecting me to read your mind, and for appreciating when I do."

...

"I could spend the rest of my life thanking you, and I plan to do just that."

...

"From this moment onward, I pledge to make our relationship my highest priority."

They're both very sweet people. Todd likes to pamper his girlfriends and be very accomodating to them. He's very thoughtful. Even to me, though we never dated, he was. I remember he picked me up once from the airport, and we were driving, and then he said, "Open the glove compartment." and I did to find my favorite Microsoft free beverage, a cherry Diet Ice. I was shocked!

He said he had been worried it would explode in there.

I met Todd's dad, who looks like him and who was very hip. I was actually walking across the room to get into the buffet line, and he stopped me and said, "You must be Niniane." When Melba and I left, we said goodbye to Todd's dad, and he gave me a big hug and said, "You were on Todd's short list."

Todd and I cooked once, and he made his own salad dressing out of oil and vinegar. I remember saying, "This is never going to work." because salad dressings seemed so complicated to me. But it turned out great!

I'm happy for Todd. He was radiantly happy tonight.

This wedding was very true to them. Todd loves music, so they had a sing-along before the ceremony. They had music all night that were Todd's selections.

They showed honor to their parents several times. At the start of the ceremony, they asked both sets of parents to rise and said, "Each of you has been married for over 30 years, and thank you for showing us an example of long-lasting relationships."

On the dance floor, after the first dance, they asked for any couples who've been married 50 years (Todd's grandparents), then 40 years, 30, etc.

Being at this wedding made me want to hold a wedding, to my immense shock. Up until tonight, I'd wanted to have a tiny little wedding ceremony out in nature somewhere, with two witnesses. I felt like weddings were so hokey. But tonight was sweet. Tonight was genuine.

The best man, a distinguished-looking guy probably in his late 30s, kept ogling me. It was so obvious that even Melba mentioned it. His date was a chic Asian woman with straight black hair. There is a phenomenon where Caucasian men date attractive Asian women but will continue to stare at other Asian women. It doesn't seem to happen for other combinations of ethnicities.

sex in church

My team dynamics have become highly dysfunctional. One coworker is so angry that he has refused to work with us in the past few days.

But there's always enjoyable dinner conversation.

John: "My friends are getting married, and the place they booked provided a room for them for half an hour, between the wedding and reception. It's for 'alone time', to consummate their marriage."

Me: "What? Who wants to have sex then, instead of just holding out for 3 hours for your wedding night?"

DaveM: "I hear that wedding dresses are very hard to get out of."

Me: "Yeah, what if you get a stain -- never mind."

Chris: "You're wearing white..."

John: "People have either had sex before then, in which case they won't want to do it. Or they haven't, and who'd have their first time in this little room for 30 minutes?!"

Mihai: "I think it's a good idea. ... What other time can you have sex in a church?"

Chris: "If you're a young boy, all the time!"