Asimov.

I'm reading Asimov Laughs Again, in which he shares his favorite jokes and short treatises on his beliefs.

One story that combined both:

I was carefully decanting liquid from one vessel into another in the Navy Yard, and in so doing, my abdomen protruded rather more than usual. A young, very thin woman in the lab lifted a long piece of glass tubing, and said, "I think I'll let the air out of your belly so that you'll look more like a man."

"Good idea," I said, still decanting. "Then you can take the air and use it to puff up your chest so that you'll look more like a woman."

Asimov liked to flirt with pretty girls. For example:

I once came to Boston University to take Robyn [Asimov's daughter] out to a steak house for dinner. She asked me if it would be all right to take her roommate. I said sure, and she brought along five roommates.

Every one of them was twenty-one years old, every one of them was beautiful, and I kissed every one of them.

One of the young ladies said, "Oh, Dr. Asimov, you behave just as Robyn said you would."

"What do you mean?" I said.

"Well, you kissed us all."

I said, "Don't the other daddies kiss you all, too?"

"No," they all chorused. "Robyn said you would be the only one."

His first wife reputedly looked just like Olivia de Havilland:



I couldn't find a picture of her, but it's probably true, because they produced a breathtaking daughter Robyn:



However, Asimov was deeply unhappy with his first wife. She criticized him frequently, and was reputedly frigid.

After twenty-odd years, he divorced her and remarried a sweet, tender woman named Janet:



Asimov writes, "Now, my dear wife, Janet, considers herself plain and, every once in a while, feels sad about that. To me, however, she is the most beautiful woman in the world, and my heart invariably leaps up when I see her unexpectedly, and she knows this."

I am very touched by this, considering his numerous discourses on his appreciation of cute girls. His love for Janet is clear through the small details, for he always refers to her as "my dear Janet", whereas his first wife is described as "Gertrude, who loved enumerating my faults" or "Gertrude, with whom I don't have many happy memories".

Offended

My Chinese American friends sometimes protest, "There are so few Chinese stars in US pop culture! Zhang Ziyi, Jackie Chan, and who else?"

I don't perceive this as a problem. Why should the US promote Chinese stars as avidly as Caucasian stars? There's no one crying foul that the top stars in China are Chinese, or that the top stars in India are Indian, so why shouldn't the same apply to US stars?

But, my turn to be deeply offended came three weeks ago, when I was reading my email.

In my inbox, the Gmail web clips showed a clip from the "Ask Yahoo" RSS feed. These questions can be quite catchy, such as "Do eyelashes grow back?" or "How often does a blue moon occur?" Unfortunately the answers are less interesting, often in the form of "We don't know either." The question on this day asked:

"Why are all babies born with blue eyes?"

I clicked through to the answer, expecting that it would start with, "Now, now, that's not the case for many of our friends: the Chinese, Indians, Africans, ..."

However, the answer instead describes melanin, cites an doctor, and leaves this travesty unaddressed.

Not to worry, I think, soon this will be noticed and addressed. Today I chanced upon it again. The answer has been posted for weeks now, in original form.

Ah, Yahoo. The same disregard that they show for users by giving them crappy UI (interstitial ads for sending email? extraordinarily slow file upload? giant animated ads everywhere?) shines through again.

not 000!

At dinner yesterday with coworkers, I mentioned that I'd seen a trailer of "Beauty and the Geek" in the gym. It's a show where pairs of beauties and geeks learn from each other in a race for a cash prize. The women learn computers and cars, and the men learn how to treat women.



I described a scene where the geeky guys were sent to buy clothing for the women. One geek came back with a dress that was way too big. His partner said, "I'm not a size 8! I'm a size 0!" and he was very indignant, "How can you be a size 0? 0 means it doesn't exist!"

Alipe: There's a size 0?

Me: Yes.

Alipe: [to Darrell] Did you know this?

Darrell: [shakes his head no]

Alipe: The show is saying this guy is a geek because he doesn't know about women's clothing? So ... cool guys buy women's clothing?

me and Darrell: [laughing]

me: Well, there didn't used to be a size 0, but sizes have inflated over the years. Stores discovered that they sold more clothes if their sizes ran big. If a woman wears size 4 at Banana Republic and size 6 everywhere else, she'll like Banana Republic more. This caused an arms race. Today's size 0 is actually still bigger than a lot of people. So now there's also 00.

Alipe: I wonder if sizes will go negative.

Darrell: Well, if there's already 00, then it'll probably just go to 000, etc.

Me: Can you imagine how easy it would be to offend women at that point? "I'm not a size 000, I'm a size 00000!"

Abort, retry, or fail?

From a Google News article:

"In South Dakota the state legislature voted to outlaw all abortions
except to save the life of the mother. The legislation, which did not
even include the usual exception for rape or incest, was clearly
intended as a frontal assault on the high court's 1973 decision,
Roe v. Wade, guaranteeing a woman's right to an abortion."

Growing up with the Chinese mentality, this stance against abortion is foreign to me.

The Chinese philosophy is pragmatic. In a country that enforces population control, abortion is a way of life. My mother had two abortions in between giving birth to me and my younger brother. The only regret I ever heard her express was, "做完第二个人流后，我屁股就大了。" which means "After the second abortion, my ass got a lot bigger." Other than the weight gain, she had no complaints.

My mother told me a story of her coworker in Beijing who got pregnant for a second time. This coworker wanted to keep the child, so she hid her pregnancy until the seventh month. Then the officials found out and forced her to go to the hospital for an abortion.

"She protested that it was too late in the pregnancy for an abortion," my mother described, "but they forced her into it. They took the fetus out, and she heard it let out a cry. Then the doctor took it away and killed it in a pan."

That's probably the kind of story that made South Dakota pass their law.

funny

During a recent discussion:

Alipe: Linux is a small percentage of the market.

Joby: But those are often the linux geeks, who know all about computers and will advise their friends on what the cool new apps are.

Alipe: Does anyone listen to the linux geeks?

Joby: Sure, just not to the religious ones.

[Pause.]

Alipe: Is there another kind?

---

At lunch last month:

Sasha: You know what would be cool? If I wore a low-res camera headpiece all the time that piped video to my computer, so that I could search it later.

Billy: How is that going to capture things like whiteboard diagrams that you really want to remember?

Sasha: I'll put a soft button on the side of the camera. If I press it, it'll take a high-res photograph.

Billy: Okay. What if you go to the bathroom and want to shut off the camera while you're in there?

Sasha: I'll put another button to pause recording in the bathroom. Though ... If the two buttons are close to each other, I might accidentally press the button that takes a high-res photo.

Me: [laughing]

Billy: How is your product going to differ from the much-maligned DARPA project LifeLog?

Sasha: [without skipping a beat] Mine won't be maligned.

nice thing that happened today

I won a Google Founder's Award.

yay!

Superbowl indignity

The Superbowl was very unjust. It was the first Superbowl I watched, and outrage filled me as I sat there watching bad call after bad call. First touchdown by Seahawks, rejected. Non-touchdown by Steeler, admitted as touchdown. 18-yard run to the 2-yard line by Seahawks, reverted. Foul-laden interception by Steelers which led to touchdown, permitted.

It was horrid seeing this most important game, what will permanently change the lives of many athletes, coaches, managers, wrecked by a number of false calls. It is so unjust!

I know this happens everywhere. The student who doesn't get admitted to college who has to work hard to make up for it. Five minutes later on the admissions committee, the committee decides to let some other student through, because they're feeling more guilty or there were more positive words in the next student's essay or the sun came out from behind the clouds.

I am the implementor of this too, as I perform resume screenings.

Best movie yet of 2006

Tonight Peter, Mingjing, and I saw Transamerica, the best movie we've seen yet in 2006. Better than Munich, Brokeback Mountain, and even Boycott the MLK movie.



It touched me for the same reason as Garden State, because its people are so flawed and yet so wonderful. Toby, the son, shoplifts alcohol and drinks it despite being underage. Bree lets it go. He starts smoking in her car. She lets it go. He hangs outside the car window, and she asks him not to. He stops. 1 out of 3!

The movie has prostitutes and porn actors and family members hitting each other, and yet -- and yet -- it's beautiful.

Previews.

We're watching previews before our DVD of Mean Girls, while eating take-out chicken salads. The movie is made by Paramount, so all the previews are also Paramount, complete with the Paramount mountain opening screen.

The first preview is Sponge Bob Square Pants going underwater to a burger joint.

Narrator: And now... bigger! louder! spongier!

Peter: Did you know it's the same guy who narrates most of these previews? Yeah, they just take him from studio to studio in a limousine, and they pay him twenty thousand dollars per. He does, like, four a day.

Me: Wow, so that's almost $100k per day.

Peter: He doesn't work every day.

Me: But even if he just worked 100 days per year, that's a million dollars. That's pretty good.

The next preview starts, which is an advertisement for Sweet Central '05, a photo album that you can put in your prom pictures and yearbook pictures. Peter suddenly stops chewing mid-bite, stops moving, almost seems to stop breathing as he stares toward the screen.

Me: What's going on? Do you really want one of these albums?

Peter: [silent]

Me: I can get one for you if you really want. But why?

Peter: It's not one million dollars, it's ten million dollars per year.

Me: Oh, yeah.

The next preview starts, and once again there's the Paramount splash screen:



Me: Wow, it's the same mountain that stars in almost all of these trailers! That mountain must make so much money!

first bounced check

I sent in an estimated tax payment on the 16th, and unexpectedy it already arrived and was cashed (in 3 days!). Unfortunately the money I transferred from Fidelity to my credit union is set to be credited tomorrow.

Thus I just experienced the first bounced check of my life. It feels dreadful, due to the unnecessary work that I have now incurred. I need to write another check and print out another IRS form and address another envelope. It's just too much! This in addition to all the bounced-check fees. Blargh it!

movie quotes

Watching King of Masks, a chinese movie about an old traveling streeet performer who adopts an 8-year-old child to carry on his legacy. At one point, the performer decides to abandon the child on the river bank, so he leaves her there and then pushes off in his boat.

The kid jumps into the river after the old man, and starts drowning.

"What are you doing?" shouts the old man, and then jumps in after her, leaving his boat to continue down the river.

"What about his boat?" I say. "He lives on the boat! He's just going to give it up?"

"It's not like a car," says Tom. "He can catch up to it once he rescues the kid."

"What if it runs into something?"

"Then it'll stop. Even easier for him to catch up to it."

---

Watching Man On Fire today, in which Denzel Washington takes his vengeance by killing a bunch of kidnappers, one by one. Denzel takes over an old man's house is taken over in order to fire a rocket launcher from the window.

Old Man: "In church they teach us to forgive."

Denzel: "Forgiveness is between them and God. It's my job to arrange the meeting."

Peter and I paused the movie so that I could cheer on Denzel's cleverness and Peter could flick his fingers in a gangster style.

Fun

Last night Peter, Mingjing, and I played an online version of Family Feud. It was exciting fun, the most fun thing I've done yet in 2006.

The highlight was when I blazed through all 7 answers for "Name something that kids eat as a snack in between meals" without incurring a single strike.

Cookies, candy, chips, crackers, fruit, ice cream, carrots.

Getty Center

Memorable items from the Getty Center:

1. Painting of a threesome:



2. I'd love to have a snooze in this bed:



3. Comfy sitting areas:



4. Pleasing to the eye:



5. The world is beautiful:

Built to Flip

Reading an article in FastCompany called "Built to Flip" about how the new economy is also about making a quick buck instead of creating sustainable value. The article was written in March 2000, just before the dot com bust, but it's still true today.

I feel its tug within myself, not so much for money but for significance to the company and recognition. Do I want to fight the hard battle and work on the project that I love dearly and think could change the world but that is risky with naysayers, or should I work on the obvious things that everyone knows should be done and are central to the company's current model and have little risk of failing?

When it emerged in the early 1980s, the new-economy culture rested on three primary tenets: freedom and self-direction in your work; purpose and contribution through your work; and wealth creation by your work. Central to that culture was the belief that work is our primary activity and that through work we can achieve the sense of meaning that we are looking for in life. Driving the new economy were immensely talented, highly energetic people who sought a practical answer to a fundamental question: How can I create work that I'm passionate about, that makes a contribution, and that makes money? By fostering a culture of entitlement, Built to Flip debases the very concept of meaningful work. And, as is always the case with any form of entitlement, it ultimately debases the person who feels entitled.

Even for those with exceptional talent and drive, money seems to have become the central point of it all. The poster children of the new new economy are people like Jim Clark, the founding genius of Netscape, who is vividly portrayed in Michael Lewis's riveting book "The New New Thing" (W.W. Norton, 1999). Despite his impressive résumé, Clark comes across as a man who is stuck on a monetary treadmill: He seems addicted to running after more and more, and then more still, without ever stopping to ask why. Late in the book, Lewis describes a scene in which he presses Clark on this very issue. Earlier, Clark had said that he would retire after he became "a real after-tax billionaire." Now he was worth $3 billion. What about his plans for retiring? "I just want to have more money than Larry Ellison," he says. "I don't know why. But once I have more money than Larry Ellison, I'll be satisfied."

But Lewis pressed further. In about six months, Clark would surpass Ellison in terms of net worth. Then what? Did Clark want more money than, say, Bill Gates? Lewis writes, " 'Oh, no,' Clark said, waving my question to the side of the room where the ridiculous ideas gather to commiserate with each other. 'That'll never happen.' A few minutes later, after the conversation had turned to other matters, he came clean. 'You know,' he said, 'just for one moment, I would kind of like to have the most. Just for one tiny moment.' " In the biggest flip of all, by running aimlessly on the new-wealth treadmill, we have come to resemble previous generations. In the old economy, our parents got jobs not because of the work itself but because of the pay. In the new economy, we got jobs not just for the pay but also for the chance to do meaningful work. In the new new economy, we've come full circle. This time, though, the drive for money is not about putting bread on the table (in other words, achieving comfort and security); it's about getting a bigger table. It's about keeping up with the Ellisons.

Savage Love this week

Savage Love this week features horror stories of how readers lost their virginity. My favorite reader story:

After the stereotypical first fumbling experience, which lasted about three minutes before I shot my wad, I laid down next to my girlfriend (failing to notice how very disappointed she looked), stroked her hair, and asked, "How many times did you come?"

-MN

Princesses

Walking into Disneyland, I noticed that in addition to the long lines for rides such as It's A Small World, there are now equally long lines to get an autograph from a costumed character such as Snow White.

"Well, that's silly," I thought to myself, "Who's going to stand in line for that?"

The answer, I learned a few minutes later, was ... us!

For Peter's sister Nicole, Disneyland was all about the princesses. Cinderella, Snow White, the Little Mermaid, Belle (from Beauty and the Beast). We even bought an autograph book so that she could consolidate the autographs in one place.



We queued next to the castle for 15 minutes waiting for Snow White, only to have her go on break with no advance notice. Nicole was quite distressed by this.

The racket of being a sweet princess requires that Snow White cannot say or do anything to deny these kids, thus a purple pageboy was employed to disappoint the children.

"These princesses, they're finicky," he recited in a high-pitched voice. "But you can go to Ariel's Grotto. It's a restaurant in the Paradise Pier zone of the park. You're guaranteed 5 princesses, 5 autographs."

We trundled for 35 minutes to Ariel's Grotto, a restaurant with a large blue neon sign next to the man-made Disneyland lake.

"We're booked for the evening," they informed us, along with several groups of distraught parents behind us. "NoooOooo," said my internal voice. We then had to face the unpleasant task of explaining this to Nicole, which we had unwisely already informed of the expected 5 princesses and 5 autographs.

She was very disappointed.

My favorite part of Disneyland was also the princesses. Not the fairy tale ones, but the little girls who were visiting the park, 4 or 5 years old, in pink ball gowns with gauze, and tall cone hats.



I loved seeing burly men in button-down flannel shirts and shaved heads, carrying little pink princesses on their shoulders, and applying their macho problem solving toward negotiating with their daughters. "We need to leave Main Street and go to Fantasyland if you want to meet Mickey Mouse, honey. We have to go now. We'll be back later to get a picture with Cinderella."

I managed to snap a photo of my favorite example. Look at the man in the center of the photograph, standing in line to buy a bottled water. He's a biker with a shaved head, tank top, gold chain, and sunglasses. And on his back? A pink Barbie backpack.



By the way, you might wonder how everyone in the picture is looking to the side, while the biker stares straight into the camera. This is because I ran back and forth taking pictures of him for 2 minutes leading up to this photo, optimizing for the best angle where he's in clear view and not obstructed by anyone else.

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.