Jane

On Friday I heard Jane Goodall speak at Google. She was introduced by Rebecca from the Google Earth team, who described how googling for "Jane" brings up Jane Goodall as one of the top 3 results.



"How amazing that an English girl who grew up in a poor neighborhood would follow a path that would allow her to come speak to all of you today," Jane opened. "As a young girl, my imagination was ignited by Dr. DooLittle. And of course Tarzan, whom I instantly fell in love with."

The crowd chuckled.

"Then he went off and married that other wimpy Jane," she said. "I hope she was not one of the other 3 results from your Google search."



She introduced each member of her team one by one, gracious outlining their contributions and asking them to stand while the audience applauded. She thanked Rebecca for organizing this event.

Jane Goodall is one of the best public speakers I have ever heard in person. Certainly more inspiring than Al Gore, or Jimmy Carter. She ended with a story about a chimpanzee in a zoo which accidentally fell over a railing into a lake and was drowning. A man at the zoo with his family, Rick, vaulted over the railing to save him. Three large oncoming chimps descended toward him, but he stayed and made sure the young chimp was out of the water before vaulting back to his family.

I heard this story 3 years ago, when I heard her speak at Microsoft, but the second hearing still stirred in me a deep reverence.

She was recently given the highest honor that a woman can receive in the UK. She was named Grand Dame. And I can see why. She exudes classiness, even while imitating a chimp greeting call, which is as unladylike a behavior as I can imagine.

When she walked onto the podium before giving her speech, the audience clapped as usual, and 10% of the people stood. Then more stood, and more, until most of the audience was giving her a standing ovation before she'd said a word.

At the end of her talk, the entire audience of over 1000 people stood as one and gave her a resounding ovation for over 15 seconds. She watched serenely as we applauded, with no embarrassment at the attention. I felt that she was accepting it, not for herself, but for her causes of nature preservation and helping the people of Gombe.

I revere her because she works for the passion of it. Not for fame, or admiration, or wealth, though those have also come to her in due time.

I can't see why anyone would choose Tarzan's Jane over Jane Goodall.

my hogwarts

Last night I dreamt that it was 100 years after the time of Harry Potter, and I was gathered in a castle den with Andrew K, Dan, Finn, and a dozen other coworkers to discuss a sudden resurgence in evil deeds.

It was early evening, 9pm. We sat on couches and on a rug around the coffee table, and video conferenced with coworkers in a faraway part of the castle. The topic was a dead animal we recently found, the corpse mutilated with evil symbols.

Someone I didn't recognize suggested, "Maybe there's an evil virus that is contagious." I immediately eyed the little monkey (someone's pet) that I could see through the video conference display. It jumped merrily from surface to surface, acting monkey-ish.

We bandied about a few ideas, but most people were distracted, eager to go home to their families. We adjourned shortly thereafter.

The following day, news quickly spread that one member of our castle, again a person I didn't recognize, was found lying in a coma. We gathered again that evening, the tone somber this time. I wondered whether one amongst us was a traitor, and responsible for these deeds, but I didn't say it aloud. Why bother, when everyone else surely thought it too.

One person suggested surveillance equipment. Another proposed establishing a nightly guard.

Then Andrew K interjected in his efficient way, "This is all documented in Dumbledore's instructions that he left behind -- what happens if you perform spell X or use method Y."

The conversation dragged on and splintered into several. I was staring off into space, thinking, "Dumbledore would've known what to do." And for a moment, I was overcome with yearning that I had been born 100 years ago, when history was being written, and all the big players were in effect -- Dumbledore, Voldemort.

Then I realized that all those people probably hated living in their time, filled with fear of Voldemort killing their loved ones. They surely yearned to live 100 years later, when peace ruled the land and life was boring.

I thought of Frodo carrying the Ring. It was a dirty and unglamourous job. He's hungry, covered in dirt, scrambling over rocks. But when it's over, he's the big hero, and everyone wishes they had been him or had lived through his time to become heroes too.

I snapped back to the den. We were still debating, the group fragmented.

Then time became hazy, and when the dream continued, it was a few nights later.

I was in the den again, facing the video conference screen, but this time I was the only one in the room. On the display I watched a hysterical mass screaming, running away from others who were stabbing members of the crowd. Above the commotion, I saw one tall young man standing on top of a platform, watching, his face stony. Then his eyes flashed red, and I knew he was one of the taken ones. He smiled, and ran down off the platform to join the mayhem.

Distantly from another part of my castle, I heard the screaming begin.

muppets

Yonatan is on video conference. Joby stands behind the small portable video conference unit and bends over it so that the tips of his hair fall over the camera.

Yonatan: Joby, I can only see the top of your head! You look like a muppet!

Alipé: In England, "muppet" is an insulting term. It means "fool".

Yonatan: Well, in the US, it's the Jim Henson pupp --

Alipé: Yes, I know what muppets are. [pause] Animated fools.

Everyone: [laughing]

Alipé: [turns to Joby, now serious] Joby, I don't mean to say that you're a fool.

Joby: That's good.

Alipé: Only Yonatan is saying that.

convo over shaved ice

Verde. I'm eating a mixed bean taro root shaved ice:



Dan's eating the same thing in strawberry.

Me: Web 2.0 is a bubble! These companies are all about, "Yes, we are ajax-enabled so that users can drag this panel from one side of the browser to the other side." But in 90% of the case, there's no reason to drag the panel! Sometimes you don't even NEED the panel in the first place! Gah!

Dan: [chuckling] It's just like the last time.

We ingested our shaved ices, then Verde closed and kicked us out.

Sitting on wooden bench outside.

Dan: That's why people think falling in love is so great, because they can count on the other person being there every day for the rest of their lives. With anything else, it's like, "Yeah, this tastes great now, but in 30 minutes, I will be done eating."

Me: [laughing]

Dan: [pause] But yeah, it does seem impossible.

Me: Falling in love?

Dan: Yeah.

Me: Yeah.

[silence for many seconds]

Dan: But you know, it's like the feeling when it's winter and you're really cold, and you try to make yourself warmer by imagining that you're lying on a hot beach. But you can't imagine it because wouldn't that be so COLD? I mean, just a swimsuit? No coat? That's so COLD! You imagine the sun and how it's beating down, but COLD!!! [pause] Then one day, you know, it won't be cold anymore.

What Tom thinks of our family

My family is going to Japan at the end of May for a 1-week vacation. My brother Tom is already there, studying abroad in Kyoto. Tom sent me some tips for travel in Japan. There are general tips for hotel, food, and then specific warnings for each member of our family.

From this you can tell what Tom thinks about each of us:

Niniane Stuff (that you ought to know but your little brother has a
sinking suspicion you will throw to the winds): 1) It is considered
extremely rude to eat while walking. It is also extremely rude to
eat outside. You shouldn't eat on public transportation, with the
exception of the Shinkansen during lunchtime. 2) If anyone gives
you their business card, take it with both hands, study it for a
moment, thank them, and then hold it until they're out of sight
before you put it away. If you crumple it or decline, they may die
of shock. 3) Rice and tea are not free, unless they serve you tea
in the beginning. 4) Decline any food they try to give you that
you didn't order, or they will charge you when you leave (fancy
restaurants).

Mom stuff: Bringing food around all day in a bag is a very, very
bad idea. It's just not done. No haggling. No shouting or raising
voice at people, they'll flip out and get their supervisor and
won't let you leave for a while, while they try to apologize to you.

Dad stuff: Ask for English tourist maps at train stations. Dad
will love planning stuff out and his skill will be needed, Japan
is sometimes a difficult place. Tea and water are usually free
refills, but negative on the soda and other drinks.

In summary, I go around eating 24-7: outdoors, indoors. I eat everything that people show me. If someone tries to properly meet me, I snub them so that I can continue eating. Meanwhile my mom is loudly bargaining with street vendors, and my dad is poring over maps and asking for free refills.

This is fairly accurate.

Makeup does wonders

This classy, confident woman:





is the trashy Anna Nicole Smith:





How can that elegant woman be the same person who pulled those antics from The Anna Nicole Show -- whining at her female assistant, insisting on sitting on her lap and bouncing around while emitting babytalk?

Is makeup THAT powerful??

Intolerance, David Sedaris, Isolation.

Went to Nordstrom in the afternoon with 3 friends, two of whom are lovely. The third makes joke after joke with a self-satisfied air, but I just don't find him funny.

I can act very impatiently when it comes to people who grate on me. I want to be nice and easygoing and tolerant, but it's hard because I feel so freakin' irritated! If anyone has tips on how to become a more tolerant person (volunteer in Africa? Reflect on my own flaws?), I'd like to hear them.

In the evening, went to a David Sedaris reading in Cupertino, where inexplicably thousands of people paid $28 - $50+ to listen to a live book reading:



I don't understand. There are plenty of authors whose writing quality is as good as his, but who don't make this much money for a reading. Are people paying for the fame, instead of the content itself?

Or maybe the audience just has a different sense of humor than me. He read one short story about purchasing a skeleton (an actual skeleton from a cadaver), and finding the dislodged index finger bone under his bed. I mentally chuckled. The lady in the row behind us loudly hooted in laughter, then bellowed out a gut laugh so hard that she snorted.

The double-header of spending hours with people whose sense of humor differs so wildly from my own left me feeling quite isolated.

a little too literal

I'm driving to the off-site on Friday, Darryl in the shotgun seat "navigating". Before leaving, I gave him a printout on how to get to our destination, divided into directions from the north, south, and east.

Me: "Okay, I just need the last direction. What does the last line say?"

Darryl: [looking at the bottom of the page, which has the last direction for coming from the east] "'See above.'"

Insurance

While riding in a car with Max and 2 other coworkers on Thursday, I glanced out the backseat window and saw this store:



Yeah, that makes sense, I thought to myself. If you have really good abs, you want to get insurance in case something happens to them.

Then reality set in, and I realized that it's only in MY world where that makes sense.

NSFW

I ran across this image while writing my last post. Oh dear.

how to tell if you're Asian

Today Yonatan and I were video conferencing with our coworker in a remote office. As we hung up, we saw our own image projected on the screen.

"Look how much more fair-skinned you are than me," said Yonatan.

One of the most amusing differences I've found between the US and China is that people want to be tanned in the US. It's all about tanning and avoiding tan lines and fake bronzers. This person was probably white and pasty as a baby but now look at her:





In China, every 5th commercial on TV is about how to keep your skin pale. Whitening gels, whitening creams -- not for your teeth but for your face. Even whitening pills, whitening powder (how's that different from bleach?).





Yonatan is also Asian, so I'm pretty sure his remark was intended as a compliment.

online shopping experiment

I arrived home tonight to find a large cardboard box -- my Victoria's Secret clothes!

It was like Christmas morning, pulling out clothes and trying them out.

These two dresses were awesome, particularly the first:





but the red dress, the one I'd been looking forward to most eagerly, was a big disappointment. It's not the beckoning, bold color in the picture,



but rather a plasticky looking color more like this (try to ignore the fact that the model is hot and just focus on the color):



Incidentally, the image search results for "red dress" are awesome!







I will totally wear this maternity dress when I have my bump:

young, old, fast, slow

I ran into Andrew in the dinner line. He had just come from playing pick-up ultimate.

Me: Oh, you were probably the best one there, right? You've been playing ultimate for, what, 15 years?

Andrew: Yeah, but I'm old now.

Me: So?

Andrew: I'm old and slow.

Me: So you used to be faster?

Andrew: When I was younger.

Me: But you were less experienced. So you'd end up running REALLY FAST in the wrong direction.

we probably made a funny sight

Today DW and I arranged to go for a jog around the lake next to work. My big fear with jogging outside (other than passing out, which is a fear independent of whether I'm outdoors) is being too cold. Having cold skin and warm muscles makes me itch terribly, particularly in the thighs.

Maybe it's to do with fat distribution, because why else in the thighs??

To combat the cold problem, I changed into 2 layers of long pants (one spandex, one cotton) and three shirts (1 tank top, 1 long-sleeved cotton, 1 long-sleeved flannel). Thus bundled, I proceeded to jog around the lake ... alongside DW who wore shorts and a T-shirt.

House makeover

In 3 weeks, my upstairs bathroom sink:



will be replaced by an undermount stainless steel sink on this granite slab:



sporting this charming faucet:



My white ceramic tile shower downstairs:



will be transformed into a lovely green marble or tile, with this showerhead set:



Interior decorating is addictive. You get to shop for cherry cabinets and granite counters and wall paints, and then tell yourself that it's also a financial investment to increase your home value. That's awesome. It's like eating a chocolate-y dessert but yet having it make you skinnier.

In other words, having your cake and eating it too.

they do need contact paper though

Party at Nellie's tonight. Mingjing and I went. Here we are, respectively with other party-goers:





At one point, I was talking to a few Googlers, and mentioning how my mom is in town to help me remodel.

Josh: How long will you keep your condo?

Me: 6, 7 years.

Josh: Why, what happens after that?

Me: I pop out a couple babies and need a bigger place.

Sanjay: That's an image I didn't need.

Avni: They don't need their own bedroom when they're young.

Me: What, I should just put them in a drawer?

Avni: Uh... I meant they can share a bedroom.

Me: No, the drawer is a good idea. Then I just need a chest of drawers. And hey, I can unscrew the knobs on the drawer handle and use the two holes for breastfeeding.

Sanjay: There we go with another image I didn't need.

More panties.

My friend John suggested a few more HTTP responses that deserve to become panty status:

> 405 Method Not Allowed
> 412 Precondition Failed
> 417 Expectation Failed

Once your mind goes in that direction, every HTTP response code sounds dirty.

> 100 Continue
> 300 Multiple Choices
> 307 Temporary Redirect
...

By the time you're through with those, even "504 Gateway Time-out" sounds kinky.

Think about THAT next time you're debugging HTTP codes.

HTTPanties

Today Darryl came into work wearing this shirt:



"Great shirt," I said, and he then introduced me to ThinkGeek clothes, where I found this delightful item:



HTTPanties! How delightful.

I don't get the 413 panties though. The other panties make it clear that the wearer of the panties is the one returning the code (as opposed to receiving the code). So the panties are saying that the wearer's ass is too big for the other person to handle? Or that the wearer's vagina is? Who would wear panties to declare that???

There are 2 other HTTP response codes that I think deserve to be made into panties:

402 Payment Required
305 Use Proxy

Tom Cruise is going to eat his baby's placenta

Oh dear God. From this CNN article:

In another strange revelation, Tom Cruise said he was planning to eat his baby's placenta. He told GQ Magazine: "I thought that would be good. Very nutritious. I'm gonna eat the cord and the placenta right there."

Okay, this is probably a joke. But because it's Tom Cruise, it COULD BE TRUE. No wonder he and Nicole Kidman had to separate -- I can't imagine her standing by this Scientologist, home-ultrasound-performing, silent-birthing, potential placenta eater.

I don't know what's more embarrassing, Katie's husband or Britney Spears' husband. Come on, girls! You can do better!

"Sex in video games" Conference.

The Sex in Video Games conference is happening in 2 months at the San Francisco Kensington hotel. Part of me wants badly to go, but it's on a Thursday and Friday and I'm not willing to skip work for it.

My chinese frugality balked at the $295 price tag, and my first impulse was to offer to give a lecture in exchange for a free pass. Then I realized it might not reflect the best on my company. sigh... sometimes one must give up their dreams for the greater good.

I must say I'm disappointed by the titles of these talks. "Integrating the Adult & Game Markets". "Creating Successful Games with Erotic Content". "The Future of Technology & Sex". How is it possible to take such exciting material and make it sound so boring?

Here are my suggestions:

"Integrating the Adult & Game Markets" --> "Make your X-box an XXX-box"

"Creating Successful Games with Erotic Content" --> "Hot Coffee, Hot Games"

"The Future of Technology & Sex" --> "Frontiers in Fucking"