Somewhat Super

In response to a letter I had sent him, a friend of mine emailed me the following:

How's the weather out there? What exactly are you learning during this 'training' period? Are you learning how to build a nuclear bomb from silicone? Really?

Now, this was an odd series of questions, to say the least. I responded in kind:

Ok, you got me. We're building bombs. Not out of silicone - which is used as a sealant, for firestops (whatever those are), and certain types of -ahem- implants. I think you were referring to silicon - without the 'e', which is used in making computer chips. But we don't use those to make bombs either. In any case, the training is going just fine, except for the interesting effects of prolonged radiation exposure. I now lack eyebrows, but have developed some interesting powers. I can now detect mimes at a distance of 100 kilometers and I read people's minds, but only in haiku form. It's a interesting talent, that last one. Often when I try to use it on women, I get something like the following: Creepy guy staring Really have to go get a Restraining order. And sometimes, it's hard to understand what they're saying, so I get things like this: My thoughts don't always Make sense or flow together. Cauliflower duck.

There are some questions better left unasked.

Tweed

A few weeks ago, I was in New Haven to take a flight to Philadelphia. Mind you, I didn't want to be in either New Haven or Philadelphia, but airports tend to be the kind of place you are with no clue why you're there and a strong desire to leave - like the dentist's office, or Germany. You don't like the place you're going any more than the place you're leaving, but you're at the airport, so what the heck. You fly. This was, without a doubt, the smallest airport I have ever been in. Unfortunately, it wasn't comically small, or this would be a more entertaining blog post. In any case, in the airport was this sign: (I know it would seem that I was drunk or not wearing my glasses, but neither is true.) In case you can't read it, it says "ATTENTION ALL PASSENGERS: TWEED NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT!" Needless to say, this was a bit perplexing. Why would tweed need my support? It seems to be a well-supported fabric, what with the abundance of elderly and/or stuffy British men. And why not promote support of some of the more flamboyant fabrics? Where is the taffeta lobby? The chiffon promoters? (Yes, those are both great band names.) Furthermore, how does one support tweed? Is there a Tweed Workers' Union or a Tweed Foundation? This truly is one of man's great mysteries. (It turns out that the airport is named Tweed, and apparently needs handouts. But I still think that Tweed Foundation idea has merit.)

Get Up, Get Down

So I said I would tell the story from after I arrived at the airport to go home for Thanksgiving. I get to the airport plenty early, and jump through the various hoops security makes you jump through ("Please remove your jacket, sir. Please remover your shoes, sir.....No, sir - j-just your shoes! Sir, please put your pants back on." "But they were chafing something fierce!") and arrive at the gate with nothing to do for an hour and a half. So I take my suit and my carry-on bag and go to see if I can't get caught up on my email and blog reading. I take out my laptop and behold! There is free wireless internet access, and lo, it is good. Well, I start going through my reading, and soon my 1.5 hours become 3 hours, due to a delay. I realize that I should keep my laptop battery charged for the plane, and I look around and find an outlet. I close my laptop, put it in my bag, and take my bag and suit and go over to the seat with the outlet. Put down suit, put down bag, open bag, get plug, plug in, get laptop, open laptop. And then I think I hear my name over the loudspeaker. Ok, I unplug the plug, close the laptop, put it and the plug in my bag, pick up my bag, pick up my suit, and go and wait in line to talk to the person at the information desk. In retrospect, I think I'm so obsessed with my own name that I just assumed it was me they were calling. I'd probably respond to any name with a reasonable number of vowels and consonants. For example, I could see this scene playing out:

LOUDSPEAKER: Marie Antoinette, Marie Antoinette, please come to the front desk. There's an mob of angry French peasants waiting for you. ME: Hi, my name's Ilan, there's a mob here for me? AIRLINE PERSON: Um, yes...over there. Are you- ANGRY PEASANT 1: Hey, I thought she was prettier! ANGRY PEASANT 2: Hey, I thought she was a woman! ANGRY PEASANT 3: Hey, I thought love was only true in fairy tales / Meant for someone else but not for me / Love was out to get me, that's the way it seemed / Disappointment haunted all my dreams. / Then I saw her face, now I'm a believer / Not a trace of doubt in my mind.... [At this juncture, a wonderfully choreographed dance starts, complete with the peasants twirling their pitchforks and juggling their torches. At some point, the real Marie Antoinette shows up, and the control and grace the dancers exhibit when setting up the guillotine and executing her - without missing a beat, mind you - can be described as nothing short of "masterful."]

Eh, where was I? Oh, right. So, as you see, my tendency to assume everyone's talking to me can dangerous. Beheading-level dangerous, or worse - spontaneous-public-musicals-level dangerous. But nothing so dramatic happened. After waiting for fifteen minutes on line, holding my carry-on and my suit, I get to the front of the line, where I am promptly informed that I wasn't called at all. Shoot, I could've spent that time I wasted in line watching a cat attacking an air conditioner on YouTube! (My money's on the air conditioner.) So I go to sit down again and discover my outlet's been taken. Oh, well. Suit down, bag down, laptop out, laptop open. And then I hear the announcement again. It sure does sound like my name, but they're saying to go to the desk by the gate instead. Well, at least there's no line there. I ask the woman sitting next to me if she heard what name they just called. She says no. (I will note at this juncture that I have no qualms speaking to total strangers. The reverse is not always true.) Close laptop, put in bag, pick up bag, pick up suit, go over to desk. As I'm walking there, I hear an announcement for a woman named Linda with the same last name as me. I pause and check my ID. No, I'm not Linda. It must've been her they've been calling. I go back to my seat, smiling sheepishly at the woman. "It wasn't me," I say, not wanting to seem like a crazy person. She just smiles in my general direction and goes back to her computer. Then (wouldn't you know it) comes another announcement, and they most definitely just called me to the gate desk. Close laptop, put in bag, pick up bag, pick up suit, and march over to the desk. "Did you call _________, party of one?" "Yes are you [checking the list] Ilan?" "Yes." "Oh, well, there's a problem with your assigned seat." "There is?" "Yes, it doesn't exist." "It doesn't...?" "Yeah, there isn't a row 23 on the plane." At this point, I consider going mad, perhaps gibberingly so. I decline. "So....now what?" "Oh, we're assigning you to a different seat." And I get a new boarding pass, and go back to sit down. I was worried for a moment there that I would be forced to sit on someone's lap for the whole flight. I mean, that could be ok, depending on the comfortableness of the lap in question, but non-lap seats are certainly preferable. Anyhow, I put down my suit, put down my bag, sit down, open my bag, take out my laptop, and soon, a plug becomes available, so I plug it in. Then, after a while, the boarding call finally comes. Plug. Laptop. Bag. Go! I stop, turn around and go back. I pick up my suit and go back towards the gate. Sighing, I enter the line for boarding. This is going to be a long flight.

Keeping Me On My Toes

So...I'm in the airport right now, ready to fly to visit my family and friends back east. My flight should've left 20 minutes ago, but we have yet to board, due to a delay. So I figured I'd blog. It seems I've broken out of my 1.5-year-long posting slump lately. Let's hope it lasts. To get to the airport, I took a cab. I call up the taxi company, order a cab, and try to figure out why the receptionist keeps calling me "honey." (It may have been a reference to how some of my friends in college called me Hunny, but that would be odd, since none of those friends work at the All-State Taxicab company.) So after a half day at work, I go home, gather and pack the last few things, and catch the cab waiting outside. The cabbie is nice and jovial and figures out without me telling him that I'm going to the airport. Nice. We set off at a nice clip, and almost hit another car, but that's ok, since my motto in driving is "a near miss is still a miss." (This being my second driving motto, my first being "The brake is on the left, stupid.") And then as we're going along, the car hiccups, like we ran over something, or the engine is coming down with the black lung. I raise my eyebrows. "What was that?" I ask. "Oh, the air conditioning isn't working." He rolls down the windows. Hmmm. Kind of confused here. "What was that?" I ask again. "I don't know." "You don't...?" "Yeah, I don't know. I am surprised too." This would've been an ok thing to say if he had said it in an adult-being-concerned voice. But no, he said it with a kind of wonderment, as if the car had just started dispensing free candy out of the broken air conditioning vents, and we were just reaping the benefits. Note to self: Design candy-dispensing air conditioning system for cars. Make millions and get a tummy ache. "Oh," I say, unable to properly respond to this. Then he offers some new information. "The check engine light is on....like always." Great. I am going to die. UPDATE: I did not die after all. I'll tell you my in-the-airport story soon, but I think we may be boarding now.

Yes, But Where Do I Find the Lawn Ornaments?

Want to have some fun? Walk into Bed Bath and Beyond and have the following conversation:

YOU: Excuse me, where is the Bedding Department? BED BATH AND BEYONDER: (pointing) Over there. YOU: And where are the bath items? BED BATH AND BEYONDER: (pointing) Right there. YOU: Thank you. And, uh, where can I purchase the beyond? BED BATH AND BEYONDER: I hate you and everything you stand for. YOU: So...you're all out of beyond? BED BATH AND BEYONDER: There is not enough fire in hell to express the rage I am barely containing. YOU: Hmmm...I guess I'll just look around then. I heard they have the best beyond in town in this place.

Listen Up

So a few days ago, I posted an audio post, expecting accolades, pats on the back, and a possible Presidential Medal. But alas, I forgot that few people read this, fewer would be willing to sit and listen to 5 minutes of me prattling about waffles and Monopoly and how every male citizen of the Republic of Tonga has a crush on the same girl from Liechtenstein (a country whose primary claim to fame is that they are the largest exporter of false teeth - no joke!), and even fewer would be so bold or generous as to actually post a comment or give me a backrub. No, I'm here, commentless and with an aching back. But I decided to invesigate why I had gotten no real response. I realized that though more people than usual had visited my site - likely due to the actual presence of a new post, of all things. But I don't think people actually bothered to listen to my audiopost because - get this - it was pretty boring. You had to wait till the middle just to get to anything halfway entertaining. I think maybe if I try another time, I should start with a song and dance. Well, you'd only hear the song, but the dance would be hella cool, I assure you. So it seems that instead of actually posting, I posted about how I should post. In other words, I blogged about blogging. It is a well-known fact that bloggers love blogging about nothing more than themselves, the narcissistic ingrates. Note to self: a fun side project/post-modern digital perfomance art: make a blog whose every entry is about why I'm blogging, how I should stop blogging, that I'm thinking about stopping blogging, why people blog in general, or why the sitcom Becker was never really given a fair chance. Find a way to make ridicuous amounts of cash money off of this blog - enough to purchase Gary Coleman, or at least rent him once a month. In the meantime, I leave you with an excerpt from my in-progress novel, Limestone:

Mac woke up and instantly regretted it. He concluded that waking up would just be the first of a series of bad moves that day. He had no clue just how right he was. He rolled sideways and off of the bed. He realized it was not a bed, but a couch. Craig’s couch. He was in Craig’s apartment, he decided, as that was the standard location for Craig’s couch. The word apartment seemed to hold some special importance. He wasn’t sure why. Finally pushing himself up to his feet, Mac decided it was as good a time as any to open his eyes, and tried to. Succeeding on the third try, he discovered that the normally level ground was writhing and twisting like a python, or like he imagined a python might, were it a hardwood floor with furniture on it. He realized that his stomach was trying to tell him something, something urgent. He ran to the bathroom and vomited with gusto. Deciding that he had had such a good time of it the first time, he vomited again.

Vomit jokes. Will they ever get old? No. No they won't.

Moving Into the 20th Century

So I'm trying something new: audioblogging. Listen, and all will be explained. Let me know what you think, whether you prefer text, etc.
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Tabernacles

I wasn't planning on posting. I didn't have anything to post on that I could think of. But then I happened across this post about Sukkot found on the Lansey Brothers' Blog. I just had to leave a comment to that post. Hilarity ensued. Or rather will ensue, I hope. Or maybe despair will ensue. I just want some ensuing to happen, ok?

As I recall (and I am not making this up), according to the halachot of sukkah, you can use a person as part of a wall of a sukkah, provided that 1) the person doesn't move and 2) the person is unaware that he/she is part of a sukkah. So just invite some friends over: Eli: Hey, guys, come over my house for dinner!
Guys: Great! Later that evening...

Guys: Can we come inside?
Eli: No, we're eating out here, because it's Sukkot.
Guys: Oh, right. But where's the sukkah?
Eli: Um...I don't...know. Can you guys stand in lines forming a rectangle? Here, let me arrange you. Now don't move, ok?
Guys: What's going on? Why can't we move?
Eli: It's, it's a game! the, um, the "don't move till we're done dinner game!"
Guys: Dinner? So we can eat now?
Eli: No, not so much.
Guys: Why not?
Eli: Because you're not in a sukkah.

The Guys spontaneously combust due to the volatile combination of frustration and absurdity.
The Rabbinic Sages roll in their graves. Some may even weep.
So there you have it - a simple solution, all laid out. All you have to figure out now is what to do about schach. (Eli: Ok, now wear these branches as hats...)
By the way, women are not excluded from this. Even though the mitzvah of being part of a sukkah is a time-bound positive mitzvah, a woman can be a sukkah wall as much as a man can. However, it may be wise to adopt the custom of not having a sukkah made of both men and women, as it may lead to mixed dancing.

For Your Listening Pleasure

One of my very first posts, one which to this day, inexplicably, has fans, was my musical debut - the hit song "Blender Man." I'd provided a link which has since gone dead, but has now been revived (without being all zombified or anything). So enjoy, at your own risk. Maybe I'll make some audio posts, if all y'all want me to.

To Pud, or Not to Pud

While writing this post, I was reminded of a question asked by one of my campers years ago:

Is "pudding" a conjugation of a verb "to pud?" And if so, how does one pud?

Furthermore, I would add, is it safe for children under the age of 18 to engage in pudding without an adult supervisor? Is it legal to pud in Nevada? Can anyone pud, or is it an activity restricted to a select few, trained over the millenia to master the sacred art of pudding? These, my friends, are the questions that our generation must answer. I can only hope, for our childrens' sake, that we're up to the challenge.

Code Red

The world is going more and more crazy, and this time, at least, it isn't my fault. I recently came across the following on the label on a bottle of Mountain Dew Code Red, a substance with little to negative nutritional value, yet one which aided a great many of my late-night coding sessions:

Contains: Carbonated Water, High-Fructose Corn Syrup AND/OR Sugar...

And/or sugar? And/or sugar?! I'm sorry, but the phrase 'and/or' belongs in insurance contracts, not in ingredient lists. Then again, I suppose that there were early warning signals that Code Red was bad news. First of all, the name: it definitely violates my never-drink-anything-named after-emergency-situation-terminology policy, which I plan on sticking to much more carefully in the future.¹ Second, the color should've been a tip-off. That particular hue is generally reserved by nature for such crucial messages as "I'm a tropical flower! Pollinate me!" or "I'm a particularly good-looking parrot! Let's mate!" or "I'm heat vision coming from Superman's eyes. Die, villain!" Since I am neither Lex Luthor, nor able to pollinate much of anything, nor particularly attracted to parrots (good-looking or otherwise), maybe this isn't the beverage for me. You live, you learn, I guess. "AND/OR?" Sheesh. ________

¹The policy mentioned above is similar to my don't-eat-anything-that-sounds-like-an-Aladdin-character policy. This, of course, is why I do not eat Babaganoush.

Driving to Distraction

You know what's worse than a fatal automobile collision? A fatal automobile collision with a clown car. I can see the headline now:

TWO-CAR PILEUP LEAVES 53 DEAD; CIRCUS MOURNS

But the thing is, despite the tragedy, it's kinda funny, 'cause, well, they're clowns.

Multimedia Explosion

Some of you might be wondering where I've been, and what I've been up to. Good question. Thankfully, I have a good answer. Among other things, I was making this video for Purim, the Jewish holiday where we all act a little goofy. Itt's made mostly from fairly undirected clips taken around our house here in Cornell. I would explain further, but I believe this video defies explanation. See the larger version here, and while you're at it, check out the other two shorts we made.

Look Closely....

Just a quick one for now. Earlier this semester, I was working for Hillel a a mashgiach and a server at one of their events. I ended up in the paper, as shown here: The only problem was that the Cornell Daily Sun got the caption wrong. The person I am serving is misnamed and her graduating year is off by at least one year. Therefore, I took it upon myself to rectify this egregious error. Here's the result: Also, in an unrelated story, our house has started a blog. I'm not sure what'll come from it, if anything, but it could be interesting.... UPDATE: That blog is defunct, having gone nowhere. However, they recently started a new photoblog. Check out the CJL photoblog.

Wheelin' and Dealin'

I don't have too much particularly interesting material from recent weeks due to being somewhat distracted and/or communicating with a superintelligent piece of lint and/or being locked in the trunk of a 1978 Chevy somewhere outside of Poughkeepsie (long story. Don't ask.) But not to worry, as things are calming down / I'm sober / I got out and hitched a ride with this nice (though somewhat...aromatic) trucker. His name is Francis, and we are now fast friends. In any case, I do have an as-yet-unpublished tale of my first traffic ticket. Yes, I have a car. She is called Charlene, and she has served me well. But this is not her story, as she was not the steed upon which I rode. Nay, I rode a lesser beast, known in most circles as a "bicycle." That's right. I got a ticket while riding my bike. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Bicycles and I have a love-destroy relationship. I brought a bicycle up to hilly Ithaca in the beginning of my Freshman year. It was a 13-year-old artifact, but it was in good condition and fairly functional. By the end of the year, having ridden it about a mile a day, straight through the frigid, snow-laden winter, it was, shall we say, in less than perfect repair. Had I been asked to testify before a court of law on the nature of the construction materials of the bike, I'd have to answer "Rust and duct tape. And maybe a tire." More specifically, the seat was mostly covered in/made of duct tape, one pedal had come off, leaving only a metal rod, and the back brakes were no longer functional, making my preferred method of stopping some combination of using my front brakes, slamming my feet into the ground, and driving into snowbanks. But the bell I'd installed still worked, so thank God for small favors. (This way, I could warn people before I ran them over - note the aforementioned lack of back brakes.) Yes, I realized that it was somewhat dangerous. I'd been warned; I believe the phrase that the guy at the bike shop used was "death trap." In sum, though I try to ride safely, and I wear a helmet, I don't always treat my bicycles with the respect necessary to keep them out of the "death trap" category. Which is why, when I was pulled over by a cop on a Spring evening last year, my bike's front-mounted light was broken. Though this bicycle was a new one, it also had broken back brakes, a fact which the cop (let's call him "Officer Fancy Pants") failed to notice. But he did not fail to notice the fact that I had no working light, or that I (courteously, I thought) pulled into the left lane to allow his car to pass, or that it (presumably) had been a slow crime day. He interrogated me as if I were a gun-wielding, baby-orphan-killing, jaywalking cocaine seller, accusing me of, among other things, a lack of respect for the law. Well, yeah; I don't respect it. Not if it's going to cause me to get a ticket for bike-riding, which it turns out it did. I mean, doesn't he have frat parties to shut down, and parking tickets to issue or something? I gave my information to Officer F. Pants in a daze, as he wrote up the ticket, not pausing to think that he had no way to verify any information I was giving him. After all, you don't need to have any form of ID on your person while practicing the seedy crime-filled art of bikery. So I took the ticket bewilderedly, ready to go to court, when Officer Pants offered me one glimmer of hope, in a world bereft of justice and free ice cream for all. With the type of felony I had committed, if the owner gets the bike fixed, and then gets to a cop to sign a form verifying this, before sundown on the next day, he is exonerated. (I was a bit confused about that time limit. It sounded a bit too, um, magic-spellish: "If thou doth get the Signature of Power by the setting of the sun in one day's time, you can lift the Curse of the Ridiculous Ticket...." You know, something like that.) I decided, what the heck, replaced the light, and brought the improved bicycle (still sans back brakes, mind you) to the police station on campus. And - guess what? - I got the signature I needed. ("And lo, it came to pass that the Curse of the Oppressive Fancy Pants was lifted and the younglings pranced and frolicked once again, except for little Johnny, 'cause he's not really into the whole prancing/frolicking scene, not that there doth be anything wrong with that....") Later, I would go on to deliver the form to the judge who was handling the ticket, wrapping up this case nicely. As I left the police station that day, the world looked just a little brighter. Riding my bike away, I broke at least two traffic laws. It felt good.

Back upfront

Back. Will post soon. Promise Till then, here's what's up.