I accept your challenge, IHOP

After mocking Will for eating too many pancakes in his lifetime, I found myself jonesing for pancakes. In what can only be described as a miraculous coincidence, Aaron proposed that we go to IHOP. It didn't take much to convince me.

Did you know that IHOP has an "All You Can Eat Pancakes" deal going on right now? Oh yes. They do. The gauntlet was thrown, and I did not back down.

My final tally was not what it could've been. I'll chalk that one up to the persistent headache, for the most part. What really got me out the door, though, was my outrageous faux pas.

Aaron and I had taken great care to watch our language, as a family with impressionable children was in the booth next to us. Somehow, I missed the family with impressionable children seated behind me. When the booth to my left emptied, I figured I was in the clear.

I won't disclose the nature of my gaffe in this post, because it was just so wildly inappropriate. I'd like to think it would've made Tucker Max proud - which doesn't exactly make me proud.

Both the 10 year old boy and his father, seated directly behind me, spun around. I didn't see this, but I did see Aaron's delighted reaction. Inspired by every sitcom ever made, I leaned forward and whispered "there's a child behind me, isn't there?"

The ensuing laughter (ours, not theirs... they didn't laugh) made my poor pancake-filled stomach hurt. Thankfully, the family chose to turn the other cheek, bless their merciful hearts. Aaron flagged down the waiter, as I was still too mortified to turn around, and we paid the check in record time.

If you were to ask me in person what I said that was so horrific, I just might tell you. Maybe.

Oh, the injustice of it all

I woke up this morning with a raging hangover. That's the price of doing business, so to speak, a weekly compensation for the rollicking good times on Thursday nights at the Harvest Moon.

Today's hangover was remarkable, though, in that it was the worst I've had since my ill-advised birthday binge. I just wanted to crawl back into bed and suffer quietly, but I had a meeting to get to, and so I soldiered on.

While walking to my lab, I pondered the cause of my cruel fate, and it all comes back to one thing: Milky Manchester and the Jameson whiskey.

My college years were spent living in a house with giant industrial-sized refrigerators that would periodically be filled to the brim with cheap beer, then emptied over the course of the night. After the requisite Freshman Year Binge, we learned that maybe it wasn't best to drink every available alcoholic beverage.

That said, there's an undeniable etiquette to free drinks. On the one hand, a keg at a party, like a fridge full of beer, shouldn't be abused. On the other hand, a drink bought at a bar is a very different circumstance.

A gifted drink is a gift. It's rude to refuse a gift - and this is coming from a guy who doesn't like getting gifts at all. Purchasing a gift for someone lends it weight, an emotional implication. Sometimes you have to be rude, because getting utterly schnizzled isn't always the goal of the evening. Generally, though, if someone buys you a drink, you say thank you, you update the Beer Balance in your mental ledger, and you drink that drink.

If necessary, you can nurse a beer or a mixed drink, but you can't nurse a shot. Milky bought me a shot of Jameson, and by god I downed that shot.

So there I was this morning, sitting in my lab and trying to keep my temporal lobes from exploding. While my lab's experiments test the properties of people, the other labs in my building test the properties of plastic. Today they were drilling plastic.

Imagine an overpowered dentist's drill, high-pitched and inescapably loud. Imagine that accompanying that sound was the overwhelming stench of burning plastic. Now imagine experiencing these sensations while hung over.

Do not want.

On the plus side, if Karma dictates that that's the price I have to pay for a night as enjoyable as last night, then I'm okay with that... maybe not every week, though.


Update: Milky has informed me that it was a shot of Jaegermeister, not Jameson, that did me in.

Caffeinated Conspiracy

The Starbucks rant, long a mainstay of bloggers and stand-up "comedians", is lame. At least it's cute when a squirrel does it (NSFW, language).

This is not a Starbucks rant.

So, I've stopped buying coffee. I still drink a lot of it, but now I just brew it myself and bring it to the lab in my travel mug. I think it works out to about 95% savings. It's quite a bit less convenient, but damned if it isn't going to save me money in the long run... all of which is going into my Buyer's Remorse Guitar Fund.

Mighty though my coffee maker may be, it can't make the espresso that I so crave. For that, I go to the Student Center's coffee shop, Gerlanda's.

At Will's suggestion, I've been drinking Americanos, which consist entirely of espresso and hot water. They're delicious, and I highly recommend them. It feels a little weird ordering "Americanos" from the Gerlanda's staff, most of whom are Mexican - I can't help but feel like I'm ordering a Gringo.

Like my sadistic coach, I am of the "more is more" philosophy, so my orders have all been Larges (actually, Gerlanda's has renamed their sizes like Starbucks, but I've quietly clung to traditional naming convention).

It may come as a surprise some people that the staff at Gerlanda's is comprised entirely of human beings. There are no robots, no cyborgs, not even zombies behind the counter. The frequency with which their customers treat them as sub-human is astounding. Then again, we are talking about the Student Center on the Science/Engineering campus.

I'd like to think that it's because I take the time to say hi, make eye contact, ask how their weekends were, and so on, that the Gerlanda's staff cued me in on a little secret the other day. It turns out that the only difference between a Small Americano and a Large Americano is the amount of hot water in the cup.

Apparently, written in small print on the menu is the following disclaimer:
All espresso drinks are made with two shots of espresso

I'll tell you what, it takes some balls to charge customers for hot water. We're being charged extra for the privilege of drinking a weaker beverage! It'd be outrageous, if it wasn't so brilliant.

Reward

22 hours in the lab over the past two days, with a few million data points recorded (this actually corresponds to about 5 minutes, but it sounds impressive, doesn't it?) and a whole bunch of rigmarole checked off the to-do list.

I love that rigmarole is a real word, according to the spell checker. It is also a valid scrabble word, in case you were wondering.

Okay.

I consider myself a lucky man. I'm one of the few crazies who never changed majors in college. In fact, it was during my junior year of high school that I knew what I wanted to do. The Plan has been streamlined and adjusted, of course, but here I am, halfway through my 3rd year of grad school, and I'm doing what I love.

I really do love what I'm doing. I'm in love with it.

I'm so in love with it
I'll be forever true to it
But it gives me no reason
That it's making me work so hard
(with apologies to Erasure)

(If you didn't understand that song reference, fear not! There's a series of posts coming that will exponentially increase your cultured-ness, you philistines.)

I'm doing what I love, which means that I'm asking, and trying to answer, questions about the nature of motor control. Highlights of this process have included profound discourse with my peers, educational immersion at conferences, and of course silent ponderings during walks to the coffee shop. I love that chin stroking, far-off gaze inducing, Eureka!-moment enabling nature of my job.

Unfortunately, answering questions is synonymous with data interpretation, and data interpretation requires, well, data. Importing, reshaping, sorting, normalizing, organizing, and plotting data.

This week, I am a data monkey. I am back on my first project, now 2.5 years old. We know what the results are, although it would certainly be nice to get them peer reviewed and published. So that's what I'm working on... not answering questions, but proving the answers. 95% of proving the answers has been reformatting the numbers properly (which is a whole other rant that I will forgo to avoid future entanglements)

This is about as inspirational as... I don't know. Tony Little using his indoor voice? A paint-by-numbers replica of the Mona Lisa? Anything by James Blunt? I'm too tired for figurative language.

Okay, enough blogging. Here's a video of Aaron riding over a log, working on his skillz.

interim posting

I'm going to write a real post soon. Writing is a pleasure for me, and in this case I'll be using it as a reward in a self-motivation scheme that will hopefully help me survive the next two weeks.

The details of what's going on over the coming fortnight are inconsequential, the sort of trivia that I'll have recovered from by June, if not February. The nose is going to the grindstone, though, and there's nothing nebulous about that.

He of Prodigal Spiky Hair is getting surgery in 8 hours. Think happy thoughts.

Someone somewhere once said, "everything worth having is worth fighting for"... I believe that this is especially true when the fight is against one's self.

Karma

So there I was, riding in the Preserve with my roommate Aaron. It is worth mentioning that as soon as Aaron starts riding more than once a week, he is going to be a force to be reckoned with at the races. Dude can handle his bike.

Riding up one tricky climb, I ran out of momentum and had to put a foot down. This maneuver is so trivial as to be subconscious; this time, though, I wish I'd paid more attention.

We'd been noting all afternoon how the ground felt different, how the leaves were frozen to each other and sounded wrong. It didn't have any substantial effect - after all, I am a survivor of Kansas City CX Nationals - until I tried to ride this climb.

I put my foot down on a deceptively deep pile of leaves, and I immediately found myself on my stomach about two yards downhill. Aaron was following about 5 seconds behind, and I scrambled to get myself and my bike out of his way, as is common courtesy.

While I can only imagine what I looked like, trying to get to my feet before being obliterated, I think the best word to describe it would be "flopping". Every time I tried to put weight on my left leg, the bike would knock into my right leg and I'd fall again.

Aaron, being an all-around good guy, slammed on the brakes before running me over. Like me, he put a foot down, then slid a few yards backwards on his stomach. Unlike me, he managed not to get his foot wedged in his rear wheel.

Somehow, in the act of slipping downhill, I'd gotten my foot jammed so tightly between two spokes that I couldn't yank it back out. This was a one in a million feat, a fact that I was not too preoccupied to appreciate.

I balanced precariously on one foot, hoping that the efforts to remove my left foot from its trap wouldn't upset the right foot's tenuous toe-hold. Too proud to accept help, I yanked at the bike for a while, by which I was able to accomplish absolutely nothing. Well, that's not true. I managed to force my foot farther into the spokes, and now I was in pain.

To be fair, this wasn't the most painful incident of the ride. It honestly doesn't even even make it into the top 3 of the afternoon (wear your helmets, kids). While I could pick myself up from the ice or shake off a saddle to the crotch, though, I'd found myself in a significant pickle.

Aaron, being an all-around good guy, was doing his best not to laugh, and he was helping me try to figure out how best to escape. All of a sudden, two large dogs came bounding around the corner, followed by their owner. A jovial middle-aged woman, she laughed uproariously, then asked if I needed help.

A note about me: I do not like dogs. I really really don't like dogs. I don't like your dogs when I'm sitting in your living room being introduced to your mini-poodle, and I don't like your dogs when I'm in your backyard being leg-humped by your retriever. I especially don't like your dogs when I'm standing one-legged on a steep, slippery hill with my foot stuck in a bicycle.

I don't spend much time thinking about my mortality, let alone the mechanism by which I will one day let slip this mortal coil. However, I'm pretty sure my inevitable demise will not involve being nudged out of a slippery toe-hold by a dog, being knocked unconscious by the bike that is still attached to my foot, and drowning in the 3 inches of water at the base of the climb. Yet that's all I could picture at the time.

Thankfully, they moved on, the woman still laughing boisterously. I redoubled my efforts to force my foot out from between the spokes, but that was about as effective as using a Doritos bag as a condom. It was with a bowed head that I conceded that I needed Aaron's help.

Aaron, being an all-around good guy, didn't gloat much. Within about 20 seconds, we'd freed my foot and were on our way... but not before he snapped some photos.

This is where Karma comes in. Back in September, Jay got a flat tire during the Westwood Velo 'cross race. Of course I ran to get him a spare wheel, but rather than do the actual work myself, I took a photo of him doing the wheel swap.
Today, Aaron acted as the iron fist of Karma. When capturing the scene "for posterity", he took an eerily similar picture.

Please enjoy the laugh at my expense. Lord knows the dog-owner did.

Oh, and for those who are curious, the wheel is a Sunrim CR-18 29 rear wheel, and it's still true.

or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Writer's Guild Strike

Impromptu jam sessions with my roommates. Awesome.

Stuff like this never happens when the TV is on, which is an absolute shame. Thank you, Writers Guild of America, for reminding us that life needn't be condensed into 22 minute intervals.



Note that these are photos, not videos. Photos of guitarists look universally cool, while videos might expose us as dilettantes. Will has such a video in his possession. Note that posting a photo of him looking musical is my way of bribing him to not post video of us sounding sub-stellar. Don't be that guy, Will.

in fact, i do think this is normal

(all names have been changed or just omitted entirely... except the name of the school and its location, which deserve to be mocked)

Not all parties are unforgettable Girls-Gone-Wild-esque Bacchanalias. At Case Western Reserve University, a small mostly-engineering school nestled betwee the bad part of Cleveland and the very bad part of Cleveland, this was especially true. Tragically true. Cleveland does not rock.

During my sophomore year, I was elected my fraternity's Social Chair. I'd thrown some half-decent parties my freshman year, and it stood to reason that I'd be able to perform just as well in an official capacity.

The illusion quickly vanished during the Greek Life orientation meeting for Social Chairs and Risk Managers. That the Risk Managers were being grouped with the Social Chairs was crystal-clear foreshadowing. This was my first introduction to the word "tort", the end of my youthful naivety.

My tenure as Social Chair wasn't a complete bust (oh no, have I ruined the suspense?). I set up a mixer with a sorority, the Pumpkin Carving mixer, which became an annual event that continues to this day. There were never any kegs in the house (the Greek Life equivalent of a smoking gun). We didn't lose our charter. Nobody went to the hospital that year - in fact, nobody went to the hospital until years later, when GI Mark tried to stunt on my new mountainbike and broke his wrist.

However popular the Pumpkin Carving mixer was (and is), my unfortunate legacy is the Hungry Hungry Hippos party.

Earlier that year, we had gotten into trouble for something. Nobody remembers what exactly, but it must've had something to do with alcohol. Everything had something to do with alcohol. This was Cleveland in the winter, what else was there?

some of my guys
Now on probation, it was up to us to get ourselves off the hook. We chose the path of least resistance, which was to show Greek Life that we are indeed capable of throwing a completely law-abiding party.

For the record: Nobody is capable of throwing a completely law-abiding party. Nobody. The Mormon Church couldn't pull it off. It is impossible. There are just too many rules... while the Social Chair is busy ensuring that there is an abundance of unsalted snack food (yes, unsalted snack food), the minors will be running amok.

If you ever want a demonstration of entropy, try to separate a dozen 18 year old Ohioans from cheap beer on a Friday night.

So we threw an official party, submitting all of the requisite paperwork to the proper offices well before the deadlines. Our official guest list was just shy 80, above which we'd have to hire a security guard. Our official flyer was unoffensive, unimaginative, and fit every guideline.

Of course, we didn't post any flyers, nor did we tell anyone about the party. In fact, we banned everyone, including the residents, from the house. "Tonight, you can go drink somewhere else". They went to someone's apartment to play Beer Pong, because there isn't much else to do in Cleveland (have you picked up on the theme here? Parents, don't send your kids to school in Cleveland). The only invitees were a couple of the fraternity officers, our trusted dates, and the Greek Life office.

Unexpectedly, Ivan showed up too. Ivan is a guy who eventually graduated after 7 years of undergrad. He majored in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Computer Engineering. Ivan is undoubtedly the most notorious prankster in the history of CWRU. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to hear that Ivan is now one of the richest men in America, nor would I be surprised to hear that he is in jail.

We played Poker, although without money, which took all the fun out of it. Then we played Trivial Pursuit. The house was eerily quiet. Too quiet. Towards the end of the game, Grainy burst through the door.

God bless Grainy, the last of a generation. Grainy was a 5th-year senior EE, a brother who'd joined during an era when the motto must've been "work hard and play hard". He had a 4.0 GPA and was a sucker for inventive drinking games. He was the captain of the Cross Country Team, and he drank more than the rest of his team put together.

Grainy, who is now the proud father of two adorable boys, was drunk. Apparently he hadn't gotten the memo, and he'd come to the house looking to wrangle up some company. As the reality of our party dawned on him, he shifted gears from happy-drunk to belligerent-drunk. This was a bad thing. In a fit of rage, he knocked over our bowl of unsalted snack food. Eventually Ivan and his ladyfriend got Grainy out the door, promising to take him to a bar.

I never found out if they followed through or not. A few minutes later, when we'd switched from Trivial Pursuit to Hungry Hungry Hippos, the director of Greek Life walked in. Never the sort to wear a poker face, he shot us a dirty look, implicitly accusing us of being a front for behind-the-scenes debauchery. This was a perfectly reasonable expectation, and it came as no surprise that he immediately took a lap around the house.

Finding nothing, the director came back to the lounge laughing. "You really threw a party for six people? This is how you throw a by-the-books party?" In my eagerness to send a message to The Man, to fight for my right to party, I'd neglected to account for the bullshit-detection capabilities of my adversaries at Greek Life. Somehow, though, they let us off the hook.

I wish I could claim that I'd out-maneuvered Greek Life, that I had outwitted them in a cunning display of diplomacy. In reality, they probably just ran out of patience or felt they had bigger fish to fry, what with a certain bunch of ass-hats across the street (let's call them Gay-ta Psi) putting their pledges in the hospital.

No longer on probation, we were free to go back to business-as-usual, where the unspoken rule is "its only illegal if you do it so obviously that Greek Life can't ignore it". However, even years later, I haven't been allowed to forget what the director himself named the Hungry Hungry Hippos Party.

New Years Eve Karaoke

I swear, I don't go looking for Karaoke... Thursdays at Harvest Moon more than suffice for this guy. It just seems that Karaoke comes looking for me.

The New Years party I graced with my presence was, um, underwhelming. It wasn't for lack of effort, it's just that the heavens weren't smiling on that particular apartment in South Bound Brook. Lack of attendance, lack of music, lack of anything remotely wild, that's what doomed this party.

At around 11:30, we made our way across the street to a small bar (just across from the scary metal bridge over the Raritan, to give my cyclist friends some reference). Lo and behold, there was Karaoke!

Alas, like the Golden Rail before it, Karaoke at this South Bound Brook dive bar - haughtily named the South Side Grille - proved to be a disappointing experience. First of all, the setup was abysmal, with the lyrics facing away from the crowd. Nothing says "lack-luster performance" like having your back to the audience. The microphone cords were about 6 feet long and tethered to the ground, so that I couldn't even step forward, let alone dance or play to the crowd.

In what must've been a fit of beer-addled genius, the Karaoke Jockey had incorporated a sound-effects board into the system. Like a talk radio shock-jock, he could interject with the sound effect of his choice at the push of a button. Fantastic.

Imagine my delight when halfway through my song, the KJ used a sound-effect to call me gay. I put the microphone in its stand and walked away. He did not receive a tip, nor will he receive my repeated patronage.

Granted, I was singing Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart", so in some sense I was asking for it. I will further grant that I was in a bar in South F'in Bound Brook, so in a much realer sense I was asking for trouble. However, it turns out that I got along with everyone in the bar, trading rounds with rednecks who drank more beers than they had teeth and generally having a great time.

Oh, and this is the guy who called me gay. Sorry about the shitty cameraphone picture. I tried to capture the majesty of the hairspray-and-mousse masterpiece that is his hairdo, but there aren't enough megapixels in the world to do it justice.

Happy New Year

May 2008 be even sweeter than 2007!