Things I thought I would never do

1. See the inside of a police station as an adult, especially a New York City police station.

2. Think about Mario as a crazy woman chased me down the block whilst throwing 3-foot metal rods. (Monday morning- on my way to the subway and work.)

3. Call 911 the second time in one week, after identifying her on my street on our way out of the apartment.

4. See the interior of the local crackhouse. I didn't want to do this despite 4 cops backing me.

5. Speak to the crazy lady, her husband, the residents of the local crackhouse and not be instantly killed.

6. Watch as the cops pulled her away.


Things learned this week:

1. I do not have an eye for track marks.

2. Cops responded quickly. The legal system is also faster than I ever thought it would be. (In the next few hours she will be sentenced.)

3. "Menacing" is a crime.

4. If you live at someplace for 28 days, leave for 2, and come back for another 28 days- you avoid becoming a resident.

5. I was able to live through this week.

Observations

• Upon first landing in Taiwan, there isn't a cheesy large "Welcome to Our Country" sign¹, however there is a large sign telling you that "Drug traffickers will be prosecuted by death." If this doesn't say how seriously this country takes its law offenders.

• After riding the gritty New York subway daily², I can't believe how amazingly shiny clean the Taipei subway is. Not only that but people actually wait in lines to board the trains and they actually wait for people to get off the trains before getting on. Plus the subway is either gimmicky to the daily riders, or actually like English speaking tourists because there is signage in English and an English speaking voice telling me the next stop of the train. Little details like arrows on the walls showing the next 3 stops of the trains, and the ghosting of the last station the train was on, leads me to have a better understanding of the trains here and where they're going than in the city I live.

• There might be a reason why the subway is brand-new clean and I believe it is related to the drug trafficking being punishable by death--- because I was forced to spit out chewing gum by a police officer. I nearly cried, for fears of being caught and the cane.

• Part of the reason why I believe everyone is smaller here was discovered in a food court. The food vendors hawking plastic food (that makes it easy for the foreigner to point to what they desire) do not serve or sell drinks. No one (besides the other white people I saw) had any type of beverage on their food trays, nor did they seem to think anything was missing. Hell, when I mentioned my incredible thirst to F's mom, she actually is worried that I drink too much liquid.

---
¹ Okay, there was an extremely cheesy song and video on the airplane telling me how "Taiwan will touch my heart". (The link to the cheesy song might be here, but like many websites here-- I can't seem to access it without something resembling a 404 error.)

² A subway that is covered in scratched-in graffiti on the windows and a certain dirtiness that can't go away with heavy applications of bleach. Actually right before we left, we were apart of a crowd ooohing and awwing over a shiny new subway that was still being tested. The difference between the new one is merely the fact that it looked clean and not harmed by the hand of taggers. (I still can't believe that the subways used to look worse.)

Things I don't understand in no particular order

1. If this email to blogger thing still works. 

(For some reason blogger is down, but I guess maintenance for the other half of the hemisphere happens during daylight hours here. But hey, I won't have to play the guessing game of "Is this the publish button, the delete entry button, or the something else button" because somehow blogger recognizes that I'm on a Chinese language computer and decides to comply.)

 

2. The international date line

Who decided its placement?  Do people who live on the dateline and go east one time zone, go back to the past?

 

3.  Stinky tofu

Why does it smell so rancid, yet in a way that has hints of familiarity?

 

4. Chinese methods of chopping items such as oranges and meat with bones

I prefer the soccer-mom style of oranges, and my meat without bones

 

5. Chinese gift giving/ gift refusing practices

Why refuse a gift that you want? The whole practice seems like a rather silly and complicated dance.

 

6. The shower at F's parents place

Although things like the electric system is just like the good ole USA (hooray for 110 voltage and 2 flat prongs!)  the bathing system is not.

Imagine a deep tub with a shower hose attachment in a room without a shower curtain (or even room for one) with drains both inside of the tub and outside on the floor.   The normal-ish looking temperature gauge you would see on american faucets (turn the gauge to the left, the water is hotter, turn it to the right it is colder) exists in the shower/tub area but doesn't match the american way.   Left-right movements may have some relation to the hot-cold, but not that I can tell.  Up-down does effect the volume of the water, and the volume seems to somehow correlate to the blistering hot to quick switch to icy cold.   I have no idea how to regulate the temperature and how to keep from turning the entire bathroom into a sopping mess.

 

7. Vampire puppet shows

Why do they carry harps to battle the non-vampires swords?  How do they magically stop bleeding and shift forms?  They can't swim?

 

8.Why I can't smuggle street vendors who make soup dumplings and other forms of bao home with me?

Seriously, they put everything I've ever eaten in the US to shame.  If I don't come home with an extra ass, I'll be surprised.

 

9. Why are people so small here?

I'm nearly pocket-sized by American standards, but I am a giant in comparison to most of the people here.  I'm even wearing shoes that make me shorter (Earth shoes with negative heels)  and I'm still a giant.

 

10.  What is wrong with the tap water?

Do they boil water out of habit or because the city of Taipei can't get their act together in keeping the nasties out of the water?

 

11. Why smiling or saying hello to the school girls who stare at me is too forward?

In day one of exploring the city, I received a lot of stares from school girls excited to see a real life American?  Some of the kids seemed to get a kick out of me saying hello, but other girls seemed absolutely terrified that I noticed that they were staring at me.

 

12. The packets of toilet paper people give out on the streets

 

13. People who wear medical masks

 

14. People who are speaking English to me, but somehow make the language completely incomprehensible

 

15. Garbage trucks that play snippets of western symphonies

 

16. The popularity of 7-11s

There is a 7-11 at least on every block, I don't know if I recognize them more because it is one of the few signs not in Chinese  (sometimes riding down the streets makes me feel like really I'm just in an intensified version of Chinatown) or because they are literally everywhere beating out all other chains, except maybe the people selling frog egg drinks in Snake Alley.

--

 

 

One of the oddest things out here isn't on the list is actually F.  Although I've known him for going on 8 years (and dated him for almost 5), I've always been around him in his ABC mode (american born chinese, with a strong stress on the American part). Now that we're here the Chinese is turned up a notch, he's constantly speaking in chinese, including trying to speak it to me without even thinking about switching into English mode.

Being out here gives me a better understanding of the watered down chinese culture on the other side of the ocean, but there is still something really weird about the fact that he has a duality that I can't entirely grasp because I'm not Chinese and because I don't really understand Chinese. 

I guess it is strange to me because I've never been completely immersed in his Chinese-ness.  Yeah, I've hung out with him and his family before..and I giggle when he talks to his parents on the phone in Chinese...

 

I wonder if others find this as strange as I do?

(I can only recall Mil Millington laughing about his german girlfriend, but I guess there is prolly less of a shock because she is overtly german.  Whereas although F looks Chinese and has a penchant for rice, for the most part he has been completely whitewashed by the American culture.)

Day 1?

(I currently have no concept of when I am, and am mildly distracted by the Chinese characters all over this computer.)

For the last week, during the precious few moments of downtime, I have been worrying about the fact that I was leaving the country without an inkling of what to expect. Although, this wasn't going to be the first time I've left the good ole USA, I've never visited a place where I couldn't even read the language and use my crappy Latin or German skillz to gestimate signage and menus.
Also, I've never spent 18 hours stuck inside of the claustrophobic hell of a middle row in a packed airplane.
---


In the winding lines for checkin at the airport (as well as the automatically forming line of death to board the airplane, where the bit of European in me desparately wanted to ignore and cut) I was one of the only non-asians, and most likely scandalized a small country by the volume of my carryon items. (Which included a small library of books, games, music, clothing and other things that I some how managed to not use for the entire ride despite my intensions otherwise.)




(sorry dad. i didn't finish writing this. will try to write more when I'm not being beckoned for breakfast.)

Waah shirr maygoren.

There is something faintly odd about the entire concept of blogging. Here these words exist on some far-out edge of the internet map, yet still easily accessible via google for the wanderers to find. Here are these words-- that might've been previously completely cut off from the majority of the world mainly because they're personal or because in general I'm not a loud person-- out in the open. Or quasi-open, as it may be.

Something is even stranger that a part of my growing up process is documented (now mostly left to the internet archive for the bulk) online, in a way that makes me feel some mixture of naked, exposed, vulnerable, bewildered, with a twist of amused.

I guess all of this it to say that for reasons not to be written here, I've taken a little hiatus. (As if you haven't really noticed.) I'm even not entirely sure if I'll ever really return from my hiatus. (Of course, you could point out that by the mere posting about being on hiatus after being on hiatus, breaks a bit of the hiatus cycle.) Hell, I'm not even sure if anyone will notice this note, except me.

The only reason I would ever come back is because of the silly stories that end up adding up and slowing falling out of my brain if they aren't actually written. Everything from the crazy moments of living in a crowded place (like the crazy guy who followed me to my door yesterday and offered to do things to my toes), to the amusements, escapades, and frustrations of life and work. Hell, I'm having a hard enough time right now trying to keep Chinese words in my mind and I'm going to be in an all-Chinese speaking world in under two weeks.


In the end, I guess I miss a certain part of this but I'm not sure if that is enough to bring me back from hiatus.

Dear 212-331-6281, 212-331-6283 and 212-331-4110,

I am not, nor will I ever be, a fax machine.

I know you're trying your damnedest to send me a message, but due to the fact that I have yet to evolve ears that decode blips and beeps I simply can't understand you. Calling me 12+ times this morning won't make me evolve the ability understand you.

Sorry, we're just not meant to be together.

Please stop calling,
Frustrated in Brooklyn

p.s. If you happen to know me, and happen to have access to a fax machine... Please comment or email me.

Dear Verizon,

Thanks for giving me a recycled fax phone number. I thought being on the receiving end of computerized Blockbust late notices and social services for Nicole Rodriguez was bad. But going through several weeks of hell just to get my new phone line connected and then to already be on fax autodialer's lists makes me contemplate a disgruntled visit upstate to your offices.

I seriously wonder if it is possible for a teleco to suck more than you do,
Missing Ma'Bell

Clown shoes

Or how I spent a week unpacking and dealing with a parade of Time Warner Cable technicians.


Once upon a time, connecting to the internet was easy. All it required was a computer hooked up to a modem (to modulate and demodulate the signal) connected to a working telephone and a phone number. The biggest problems back in the stone age of connecting to the internet were:

1. A chatty kathy on your phone line
   This was easily solved by chatty kathy extermination or for less jail time a shiny new phone line specifically for the computer¹.


2. No internet service
   This was easily solved by shelling out money for a shiny new ISP, BBS, or the slacker way by becoming a college student.


3. Internet service busy signals
   This was easily solved by autodialers or by switching from AOL to something better.

Now that we're out of the internet stone ages, everything has gotten increasingly complicated. Mainly because it was determined by the increasing flocks of netizens that lag brought about by the skinny telephone wire connection to the internet was inhumane. The telephone wires just weren't built with the Big Picture in mind. Cable companies, who were already used to delivering 30 frames per second of visual and audio information, leapt at the burdgeoning new subscription cash cow over their old lines, whilst dreamers failed laying the fat pipe connection of fiber optics.

The formula for connecting to the internet remained the same: Wires still carry the signal to the house with a modem to decode the signal for computer consumption.² But it is much more complicated.

And this is what brings me to the horrific discussion section about Time Warner. I loathe Time Warner, to the point that I tried my hardest to choose someone else as my internet service provider- but they own the wires that my isp piggybacks on so....

Introducing TM Technician number one...
He came by to hand over the shiny new cable modem, to test to see if the line at least sort of works, and then to go running away back into a cave. He simply forgot that there might be other people living in this building with cable and disconnected them in the process of hooking up the cable modem.

Introducing TM Technician number two...
My landlord was expecting his arrival, and ended up confusing the hell out of the guy with his Spanglish. This technician did nothing but yell at my landlord as if shouting will make the technician's english more understood, he refused to install a new line for my apartment, and left in a snit.

Introducing TM technician number three...
Determined to have internet that isn't a wavering stolen signal from a neighboring Linksys router³, I doled myself up and ran to the door before my landlord got to the 3rd technician. I tried to shine with my computer knowledge, english fluency, and was willing to beg for a clean brand new cable line only for this apartment. He left saying he was phoning in another work order, and everything will be shiny and happy soon.

Introducing TM technician number four...
He was the manager who called less than three seconds after number 3 left, completely unaware of 3's visit and recommendation for a new line. He called to ask about the service of the 1st two technicians, both of whom were supposed to drop a new cable line into this apartment.

Introducing TM technicians five and six...
They both called whilst I was in the middle of phone prompt hell trying to get my phone service issues solved⁴, my cell phone can't deal with call waiting so I actually had to start the phone prompt hell again after #5 telling me someone was coming today to check the line and #6 wanting to schedule a time for quality assurance to look at the lines.


In the middle of typing this TM technician seven came and dropped a new wire after certain information being lost in translation with the dog owning next door neighbors. And TM technician eight called right after #7 left to say someone would be coming by later this afternoon.


Should I get out the punch bowl?


----
¹ Related to the chatty kathy is the battle with other budding internet addicts for a free line. Like any addicts fighting for a single line of connection, this quickly escalates into a brutal war, especially when siblings are involved. This was only solved by early adoption of home networking or fleeing for college.
^{2 Internet user : ISP : the Internet as a Catholic person: Catholic Priest: God. This analogy makes perfect giggly sense to me, and perhaps not to anyone else...
3}If I know you, ask me about the Penis Party story. And regardless if you know me or not, I'm still amazed that people are able to hook up their wireless routers on their own.
⁴ Note to self: Moving into the landlord's previous apartment was a brilliant idea in terms of apartment beauty, but was quite the headache when the landlord decided to move upstairs and take phone wires with him instead of telling the phone company he'd moved upstairs.

*This wrantish post is brought to you by Wireless G, and hopes that the Time Warner people ego surf and will somehow give me a free t-3 line for my troubles.

Also, I could really use a nap, but I won't dare attempt such a thing right now due to a story for later.

disappointing incompetence in the face of disaster

I don't watch tv, mainly because I see no need (or have no time) to spend hours glazed over in front of the boob tube. But something about the handling of the recent tragedy^*, has glued my crying eyes to constantly watching the videos as news reporters and elected officials break down.

At the current moment this is from my favorite video clip:

But, nationally, these are leaders who won re-election last year largely by portraying their opponents as incapable of keeping the country safe. These are leaders who regularly pressure the news media in this country to report the reopening of a school or a power station in Iraq, and defies its citizens not to stand up and cheer. Yet they couldn't even keep one school or power station from being devastated by infrastructure collapse in New Orleans — even though the government had heard all the "chatter" from the scientists and city planners and hurricane centers and some group whose purposes the government couldn't quite discern... a group called The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

And most chillingly of all, this is the Law and Order and Terror government. It promised protection — or at least amelioration — against all threats: conventional, radiological, or biological.

It has just proved that it cannot save its citizens from a biological weapon called standing water.

--Keith Olbermann (video link via CrooksandLiars)

I've always held a certain distrust and disinterest in politics. I understand why governments exist, but I still can't wrap my brain around how protecting your citizens (which seems to be the role of the government from what I understood) has utterly failed in this country. Is it a case of the current administration being anti-science, pro- The End of the World is Coming Soon, pro-ignorance, pro-military spending instead of school funding, pro-big corporate funders, anti-poor and others who didn't vote for them^**, ad nauseam??? Whatever it is, it depresses me greatly-- and I begin to wonder how much longer this country (or administration) will last.




---
^* I believe my family's birthdays are cursed. It starts with my youngest brother whose birthday is on Pearl Harbor day, my birthday being the unfortunate 9-11, and now my sister's birthday is the day of Katrina. I do wonder if this means that the next horrific event will happen on my younger brother's birthday. Perhaps I should make it an annual traditional to spend his birthday in the complete middle of nowhere?

^** Seriously, why the hell are people like Anne Coulter so against New York City? I have read about how evil the woman is, but never watched her until recently (and secretly wish that she will randomly lose all of her obviously beloved blond hair)... Why does she keep bashing New Yorkers especially in regards to the current devastation in NOLA?

Sometimes I don't believe in humanity

But sometimes I do^*.



^*This turned me into a weeping mass.

11 more shopping days

Till my birthday.

Thus meaning it is amazon wishlist pimping time, so you all can help me celebrate turning older through consumerism. You know you wanna buy stuff for me.


In other unrelated news, I might be feeling old in a quarter-life-crisis sense, but my 8 years younger sister has been recently afflicted with two old man afflictions. She has been properly teased for turning being an old man inside of a young woman's body. And her shingles and bone spurs make me feel less worried about budding wrinkles and wisps of gray hair.


11 things I'd like for my birthday

1. A pony
2. A free pass from shingles or any other strange old person ailment until I'm at least in advanced levels of crazy old woman hood
3. All of my belongings to be magically beamed aboard my new apartment
4. While I'm at it, all of my belongings to be magically unpacked and organized
5. A pretty pretty princess dress for pony rides
6. A better White House
7. A way to shift time around to make all the bands I want to see, play after I move into my new apartment mere blocks away from their venues (It is frustrating how many bands i love are currently playing near my new house, before I move in, argh.)
8. A babel fish for the new neighborhood and for all of the times my cat conversationally meows
9. A salty birthday cake, or if that is impossible a sweet birthday cake with a scoop of bacon swirl ice cream
10. A crew of house elves
11. A national holiday

Freecycle

Soon I will be saying goodbye to the apartment that has housed me for the last two years. Which is the longest I've lived at one address in my entire adult life. I wonder if I will miss this place with the pool of sunshine, the sweet breeze, and the painfully long commute at night.

But it also means that I haven't had the annual move as an excuse to pair down my belongings for awhile. Most of my furnishings have mobility in mind (folding bookcases, buttons, desk) but still I seem to be hoarding a small nation in clothing, books, and general household clutter.

This is one of the instances where the internet amazes me. I have started giving away all of the stuff I've moved several times without using to the Freecycle community. Within an hour of listing something I wish to be purged of (be it tables, bags, rugs, ghetto blasters, or whatever) it will be gone from my apartment, to be loved by a new owner. Thus curbing some consumeristic guilt and reducing my personal landfill addition, hooray!

No Skirt for you

In one of those nice warm blanket statements I can make as the human behind this blog, I believe that nearly everyone on the planet has tics. And no, not the blood sucking kind that come home with you after a romp in the woods.

I'm talking about the interesting quirks that nearly unconscious to the tic-ing human. Some are easily manifest in speaking (e.g. "ummm", "like", "you know") and only truly bothersome when you find yourself tallying instead of focusing on the verbal content. Others that are physically manifest (e.g. facial twitches, flipping off bad drivers, scratching) and quite amusing to catch.

I'm trying to decide if I have in fact discovered a new tic.

For some time, I haven't bothered to wear short skirts. Mainly because I have no interest in the whorish look that pervaded the clothes racks and adorned improper body types for much longer than was really necessary^*. But this year, skirts of a below-the-knee length came out with spin.

Rewind 20 years, and my favorite thing to wear was what I called "circle dresses". The type that are supported by a crinoline and flair out when the wearer spins in a circle. I would spin around until I got sick from the dizziness, excited to watch my skirt poof outwards in the process.
I was quite the girly girl who aspired to be a ballerina (according to the Montessori's newsletter) when I grew up.

For those of you new to the home game, I didn't really grow up to be a girly girl. If anything I'm a girly girl amateur who hasn't dedicated any of my life to applying my face or obsessing over accessories. This is precisely why I have just discovered a tic.

I don't know how to wear a shortish skirt. As in, I find myself pulling my skirt up whilst prancing around. Without even noticing that I'm doing such a thing. I might not have ever noticed that I do such a thing, except I was recently shot a strange look while waiting for the subway, met with quite the fire on my cheeks.

Yes, I wear skirts as if I was a 4 year old.


Do you have any tics?


--
^* I was fashionly born into the grunge, too young for the earlier wave of girl whorishness (madonna in the 80's) and too old for the wave brought on by Britney. I will admit that I did hike up my skirt in the catholic school girl years, but I still find that more tasteful than buying a small stripe of cloth that calls itself a skirt.
Also, I find that many of the people who choose to wear the super short skirts or the low slung jeans, really deargawd shouldn't.


Post Script: This isn't the first time wearing a skirt has caused slight embarrassment on the subway. Several months ago whilst waiting for the train, I decided to sit on the ground. In another one of my tics, I generally sit with one knee up and the other tucked Indian style. My positioning caused a horrified elderly woman to come up and whisper that I ought to sit like a lady.

Magical money

Did you know that it is possible for an ATM to spit out a receipt saying it gave you money, when in fact it didn't?


Also, it is possible for the bank to realize that particular ATM is out of funds, but to be unable to do anything about your non-received funds (and everyone else who avoids your note about the sucky ATM) until at least the next working day?

Shouldn't there be some mechanism to prevent empty ATMs from pretending to dispense money?

Common People*

The air was thick smelling of baked garbage and blazing. Strange pockets of air conditioned comfort floated around, but never enough to protect me from the slime of sweat and sticky city condensation. As I performed the short death march, I tried to keep my sandaled feet away from the scank water pools the city usually bleeds, but turns rancid in the oppressively high heat index^**.

This was a death march with a purpose to walk only a few blocks to visit a friend, on a layer over back from Europe in NY especially to see me, and convince her to move out to the currently stinky city. Actually, she doesn't need much convincing and the city is at least populated by individuals aware of deodorant with a grasp of English, building that have air conditioning, and taxi cabs.

::Internal Post Note::
Now I realize by this point, I have completely failed to actually write about the title or subject of this post except in a long winded footnote that completely derailed me and made me wish for an internalized succinct editor to throw the spaghetti mess at the wall and examine the pieces that stick. Obviously I need to stop making these little diversions, I just can't seem to quit.
::/end::


We spent an entire giggling and eating our way through menupages (hooray for delivery!) because a little snafu involving the door locks where she was staying made us stay put in the icy indoor air. I didn't feel the need to complain, especially when I barely had money for food let alone cabs. In short we had a marvelous time, one that I don't feel the need to detail or outline for the semi-public consumption.

However, there is one conversation of note for this long winded blog post. She made an offhand remark essentially about how she is responsible now that she pays for her cell phone bill. This is the only thing she pays for as her parents pick up the tab for nearly everything else including law school. Ironically, the only thing I don't pay for is a cell phone (thanks dad!) mainly because I wouldn't bother if I had to pay.

Maybe I'm just having a moment of school loan sticker shock, after receiving my consolidation notice in the mail... Or I'm highly aware that a certain person who happened to be born prematurely in order to be a little bit older than me, is about to come into an unfathomable amount of wealth because of an approaching birthday.

I just can't help wonder what life would have been like if I had been born to a different generation. Granted I'm disgusted by certain levels of materialism, or the idea that someone my age has no knowledge of how to pay bills or even cash a check.. but I wouldn't be in academic loan servitude.

I have had tastes of the upper class growing up. I had etiquette classes internalized to the point that sometimes I'm surprised that the rest of the world doesn't know how to do something properly. I day dream about 6+ weeks of paid vacation in order to continue with my accustomed frequent vacation schedule. Traveling by plane is no big deal, and I've still internalized this lack of understanding of why anyone would drive anywhere far away when they could fly.

But I'm not upper class. I'm a common person with breeding to make my pinkie straight when I drink tea, who fell in love with a common boy. Yet I'm aware of class, and quite jaded about how it comes into play with the American Dream. A topic I think I'll save for later as I'm most likely the only person who has made it thus far in this gawdawful long post, and I'm rather exhausted by my own longwindedness. Fucking blogs, attention spans, and mental spews.





---
^* The song is not, despite what hipsters might say, originally written for/by William Shatner. If I was a more organized person [read:I can't find the fucking cd] I would offer the song's original version by Pulp or even the William Shatner version which I believe lost some importance in the remake.
I first heard Common People by Pulp when I was a private school high schooler going on a school-lead European trip in 1995. I was drawn to it, although didn't quite understand what the song was about at the time, and dragged it and a bunch of other brit-pop cds home with me in my already tightly packed bags. I believe it took a second trip to England, for me to understand the depth behind the song.
Also, because I love making side notes upon side notes... I wish I could remember if my Anglophilism started before this trip in 95, or because of it. Or this paired with a friend with an English step mom, we day dreamed about moving across the pond... quite like the Germans scribbled American-related love in their notebooks, when I was an exchange student in Deutschland. Holy disconnected footnote, Batman.
^** If I survive this summer of heat wave hells, I vow to spend as little time in New York next summer as humanly possible. Or to invest in a personal air bubble which includes protection from the outside air, and comes complete with a salty ice cream maker. Screw fudge ripple, give me bacon swirl.

5x5

What should I do for my birthday this year?
Besides the quarter-life crisis stream of thought or wish it didn't happen during a horrible anniversary.


Suggestions?

FYI

It is a bad idea to say "Well, that is the worst thing that could happen besides your child dying," in response to a recent nightmare of a parent has lost a child.




Thankfully, I caught myself before I did.

Woah

In less than 24 hours after posting about my bike lock failing to be opened with a pen, I got an email from the company thanking me for using their locks and telling me about their free program for replacement keys and how to return my lock for a better model.

I'm rather shocked, especially because this seems like an unexpected use of blogs and metadata about consumers. I have a general cynicism which in its application to the web means that I would expect comment spam, quote harvesting, and cease and desist mail. I am currently quite floored that my blogging meta data was quickly discovered by someone in Texas, employed by a reputable company I wrote about in the previous post, who in turn sent me a friendly email.

Is this because the company has received a bunch of bad blogging press due to their locks being exploited by a pen? Is this a part of turning away from generic broadcast advertising to a more individualized feel? Should I start worrying about the Scientology Omni Cam?


I realize that although this blog is not private, nor is anything posted to the web despite the guise of locks 'n chains or .htaccess files, what is posted here on a infrequent basis does not feel completely public. I can approximate who the audience is by the regular commenters, the lurkers who keeping tabs or hoping to score good dirt, or the strange people who come here searching for the perverse and leave never to return. I purposely refrain from writing about a variety of things due to the 2nd and 3rd groups in the realization that anything posted here can be discovered. But being discovered by a corporate entity has been completely outside of my scope, a near-invasion of privacy.

I was half tempted to write their name in this post, just to see if I'd get another email from the same office in Texas. But I want to continue in my little bubble world where they can't hear me.

lock 1, pen 0

In slightly stale news, Kryptonite bike locks are easily unlocked by Bic pens. During the flurry of when this report came out, my bike was locked up and stashed in storage. And I never had a burning desire to move a tangle of heavy objects in order to check the lock for myself.


Fastforward almost a year later when I'm forced to remove my stuff from the levitating storage area due to recently being determined a fire hazard by the law despite any logic that might determine otherwise. The storage shelf occupied space in the stairwell above the inhabited floors of the building that lead to roof access that is now supposedly legally off-limits for humans. Anyway, it was time to unearth my bicycle from storageland.

At the time I stored my bike, it was a brilliant idea to make sure I locked it up nice and tight. I used two U-locks and a chain, which is completely overkill in my currently neighborhood where the kids don't even bother locking up their bikes. During my bike locking, it didn't cross my mind that I would ever lose my keys to the bike locks. Especially after leaving the bike for several years in storage.

Honestly, sometimes I have no real scope of the future and my instant ability to lose and forget things.

After tearing through my apartment, trying to find the key chain with the needed key, I turned into the crying girly-girl hoping that I could will the lock open. Somehow on the train of thought about powertools possibly breaking the lock, or at least cutting the tires off of the lock, I remembered the Bic pen solution^*.

The new mission was to find a Bic pen, something that was nearly impossible despite my apartments wide array of pens in cups. I cursed myself for my love affair with the wrong type of pens necessary for the lock springing operation. Until at last I found a pristine Bic pen swiped from a hotel.

Working off the pen's back cap to expose the fresh Bic cylindrical goodness, I tried to exert the graceful effort as seen on the video (contained in the above link) without any luck. I could barely jam the pen in the lock, let alone successfully twist the damn sucker. I tried tips such as sniping the Bic which whilst combined with the twisting, ended up producing a rather sad pen bottom.

I even had the boy try a few rounds with the pen, but was exceptionally futile especially considering I am the one that opens the bottles and jars in this household. After a good bit of yelling in frustration at the lock, the boy did prove his worth, "Would the key be in Place I Never Would've Looked?"

It was smiling sweetly at me with a spot of rust when it was discovered. And my bike was jubilant to be freed from the shackles without any harm.



---
^* I must bold because I am unable to make the appropriate soundfx and capture a halo ray of light on a Bic.

Dear spacebar,

Why haveyou decided tostop working someof the times? I'm trying to figure out the pattern, or what might be causing all ofthe difficulties?

I can't live withoutyou,
The girl missingspaces



Dear boyfriend,

Why must you share your sick germswith me?

I love you, notyour germs.
The girl whose cup you keep stealing

Holy Fucking Shit

Dear Readers,

I am going to point you to this entry by mary.

Or for those of you too lazy to click a link here's an excerpt so you have an idea.

Y'all! Y'ALL. I just got an e mail inviting me to a TEN YEAR high school reunion. I am SO OLD. First I had to turn twenty-five and now this? In one year? Being a child prodigy SUCKS.

I haven't even turned 25 yet. But will in a dreadful 43 days. I'm growing wrinkles and gray hair and never expected that I would live this long.

Now the big question, do I really want to go to my 10 year reunion?

Still lamenting the fact that I don't have a sharp age advantage anymore,
--The old fogey author of this site


Post Scriptum: Despite the 10-year reunion, at least I'm not expected to be a real adult until my thirties. or atleast according to this article which tells me...

"A lot of people in their mid and late 20's do not think of themselves as adults," Dr. McAdams said, "even if they make a lot of money."
The result is a period of life that has come to be known among some sociologists and psychologists as emerging adulthood. "It's like a new stage in life," Dr. McAdams said. "They're not teenagers, and they're not really adults."

It also gave me ideas about pilaging my dad's house the next time I visit. *Excellent idea*


Post Post Scriptum: Dad, I don't really mean that.