The Overheard Blog

at the dining room table January 20, 2012

A: Junk, junk, junk. Do you want this Land's End catalog?

B: Ha!

A: Junk, junk. Huh. That's weird.

B: What?

A: This letter, it's post-marked January 20, 2012. That's... that's exactly 18 months from today!

B: How queer! Who's it from?

A: That's the strangest part. It's from... me! Or, rather, some presumably futuristic version of me.

B: Maybe you're the past version of him!

A: !

B: What does it say?

It reads, "Dear me: I thought I would give you a quick heads up about some things that are going to go down in the next 18 months. First, your job will be awesome, go ahead and start feeling extremely fortunate about that now. Turning your back on the other job that you chased for six months will turn out to be one of the best decisions you'll ever make. Second, you'll live in Bucktown, off the Blue Line. You'll love it. Bucktown is that neighborhood you went to once, and the Blue Line is the one that goes to O'Hare. You rode it one time. Your place will be sweet, and your roommate will be awesome. (You don't know him yet, but you met once at a get-together.) Third, you'll spend one or two nights a week with a hobby that you haven't tried yet. You'll share this hobby with no one that you know now, and they will be great, and you'll love it. Fourth, almost every one of your friends in Chicago will move away, and you'll be happy for them, and they for you. Fifth, you'll have great new friends in Chicago, don't sweat it. Sixth, you'll be dating someone (you haven't met her yet) and be excited about it. (Oh, you'll be divorced, too. I know, right?) Seventh and not unrelatedly, you'll have a newfound appreciation for your family. Eighth, you'll ride a jetpack to work everyday. Ok, I think that's everything. I just wanted to let you know that while it might get kind of crazy in there, it all works out in the end. (I know you just thought about that part in Watchmen when Dr. Manhattan is all like, 'The end, Adrian? Nothing ever ends.' and is awesome. He's right, of course, but you know what I mean.) Anyways, take it easy! PS: One of these is a lie, can you guess which one? PPS, I initially wrote you a longer letter with more details, but the original got burnt by my jetpack's exhaust and I didn't want to rewrite the whole thing. PPSS I'm obviously totally kidding, the jetpack one is the lie. PPPSS, OR IS IT? PPPSSS, Yeah, it definitely is, clearly."

at Hot Chocolate's January 20, 2012

A: How's the ol' short story going, man?

B: Oh, really good, actually, thanks, I feel like I've made a ton of progress lately.

A: Terrific.

B: Yeah, I think I finally have a good handle on the main character, and sort of getting character established early, right out of the gate.

A: Perfect. How are you doing it?

B: Well, heh. I'm a bit embarrassed now.

A: Oh, no, don't be

B: Well, it's just, I like my opening lines, I think it sets him up.

A: What are they?

B: Well... Ok, I'll just read them. Ahem. Oh, I should say, that, the main character, who's the narrator really and is retelling a story that happened to him earlier in his life, his name is never mentioned. But I have him nicknamed The Stranger, and he's this sort of grizzled old man, telling this story at a bar. So, this first part is dialogue, and it's him talking, and it starts. Ahem. Now, I'm nervous, haha. Ok. Here we go. It starts, "Well, I guess you could say I've always been a little different. Everyone else drinks to remember, but me? Me, I drink to forget."

A: ...

B: You don't like it?

A: Can he also checkout any time he wants, but he can never leave?

B: What? No, he's not a guest

A: What's with the "Hotel California" then?

B: Wait, how did you know where it was set?

A: ... You're kidding. This is all actually set in a bar at the "Hotel California"?

B: Yeah, I just made up the name.

A: No, you didn't! It's a famous song! And "Some drink to remember, some drink to forget" is a lyric in it!

B: But it's different! That's not what The Stranger says! And even if he did, it's just a coincidence, I've never even heard of that song.

A: Oh, shut up. You totally have. It's the Eagles, everyone in the world has heard that song. Kazakh yak farmers sing along to the "But you just can't kill the beast" part.

B: I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.

A: Dude, you're either lying or have had a stroke or something. If you seriously don't know what I'm talking about, you need to go to the hospital, no joke.

B: ...

A: ...

B: I was just messing with you! Of course, I know that song, duh. I gave up on writing that story months ago.

in the kitchen of suite 1280 October 27, 2011

A: Did you see Stallman's speaking engagement rider?

B: No, who's he?

A: Oh, sorry, he's a real famous, eccentric open source dude. He looks like he was raised by wolves, chews his toenails during panels

B: Ha!

A: Yeah, for real. Anyways, he published this list of requirements he has for speaking engagements. And the dude is just totally bizarre, he lists the temperature range where he can sleep, and if it goes two degrees up, he needs a fan on, and two degrees more than that and he needs air conditioning.

B: Oh, wow.

A: Yeah. Super, super eccentric. But then with some of the stuff, you can see his convictions, and how important they are to him. Like he won't use cell phones, because you're not allowed to install software on them. He really sees that as almost like a prison. And it's just like, Wow, I think that's a really crazy thing to think. But to think it that strongly, and to really stick with it, it's admirable, I think, it really is. I don't admire his convictions, I think they're nuts, but his ability to live by them is really impressive, imho.

B: Well

A: I mean, I tried to be a vegan this summer and then I gave up on it. And I can make myself feel like a real piece of shit about it, no problem. It's like, my stated reasons for being a vegetarian, which is itself pretty fraught these days, but those stated reasons sort of force me to be a vegan, if I want to be coherent. But I really, really don't want to be a vegan. It's a huge pain in the ass, right? It's totally a lifestyle, in a way that being a vegetarian is not. But then, this boils down to, you know, "P" and "If P then Q", but then "Not Q". Which doesn't work. It's a fact to me that it's unethical to treat animals like shit and give them horrible lives just to eat them when there's other things to eat. I feel like I really believe that, I think that's why I'm mostly a vegetarian. But then, if I believe that, I have to also believe that it's unethical to treat animals like shit and give them horrible lives just to milk them, or take their eggs, when there's other things to eat. There's no real distinction there, to argue otherwise is just sophistry or casuistry or one of those other words I'm trying to learn. So I have to be a vegan. But I really don't want to be one. I just don't. So I have to either give up on even attempting to live a coherent life, one that follows ethical principles that I've decided on and believe in, or I just have to acknowledge that I'm a lazy, shitty person whose convictions only last until they're inconvenient. And I tried to make these distinctions, you know, "Oh, I won't be a vegan when I have dinner with someone, because it really also imposes on them, and it's sort of impolite to immediately discard 90% of the restaurants in the world as options because I need to find some place that actually even HAS vegan items," but then, it's like, am I actually discarding things that I believe in because they're vaguely impolite or socially awkward? It's not like factory farms are anywhere near the evil that slavery is, but you know, imagine abolitionists who didn't speak out against slavery when their neighbors were around, because it might be awkward. Look, if you have something that you think is right, and other people disagree with you, screw them. It doesn't matter. But then I didn't want to be a vegan, so I thought that if I weren't a vegetarian either, at least I'd be consistent, at least I'd make internal sense, but the idea of killing animals for my own bullshit philosophical wankery is obviously a terrible idea. That's horrible. But it's like, even if I were a vegan, where does it end? I can't wear leather, either. Ok, that's doable. But people are more Valuable than animals, more Important, with capital Vs and Is, and so, you know, I can't have phones made in terrible conditions either. I can't own anything made in those nightmarish factories in China and the rest of Asia. And I had this genuinely terrible, vertiginous moment where I could see what lay down this path, and it's me in a commune wearing a burlap sack or something. That's where that path leads. And I really don't want that, I just don't. And I don't trust myself here, really, but it doesn't seem to me that a world of burlap-wearing people in communes is better than this world. So. I don't know. I think it's just hopeless.

B: Jesus.

A: Yeah, sorry. I guess I sort of needed to dump that on somebody.

B: Yeah... So anyway. This Stallman dude doesn't have a phone?

A: Haha, yeah, apparently. I guess he sort of cheats, though, he's willing to use other people's phones to make calls.

B: That's total bullshit.

A: Well, I think that's sort of the outlier there with him.

B: What's his job?

A: I think he gives talks, and sends emails, and... Yeah, that kind of stuff I guess.

B: So he's full of shit. He's supposedly got these great convictions, but he's probably the only person alive who can actually live the life demanded by those convictions. His whole job is talking about himself and his movement, that's literally what he does for a living, and he has handlers or little Linux nerds that do the Yelp lookups for him because his convictions don't allow it, and if he needs to make a call, he just borrows a phone from the sinners around him that aren't enlightened like he is, and who instead have real responsibilities, and they need phones and cars to pick up their kids from soccer practice or visit their folks, and they have social lives and don't want to spend their Christmas fighting with their open source DVD player so their nieces and nephews can watch the Grinch. He lives in a fantasy world, he's totally detached from reality. He's no better than you are man, lighten up, Christ.

A: That's not comforting, though, right? Reducing Stallman to just another self-absorbed, cheating weirdo doesn't change my situation. It's not like I get off the hook for my own failings because Stallman isn't Jesus. Look. I really believe that there are basically two buckets of living, you know, one bucket is that you stand up for what you believe in, and one bucket is that you don't. And it doesn't matter how you fail yourself and live in that second bucket, it doesn't matter if you drink factory farm milk, or you drive drunk, or you cheat on your wife. It's all the same bucket, you know, "We've already established what you are, darling, now we're just haggling over the price." I know I'm in that second bucket. And the fact that, as far as I can tell, every other single person is in that second bucket too doesn't make it ok, it doesn't.

at The Lucky Number October 27, 2011

A: Well, you know, I definitely have a better idea of where some people are coming from.

B: What do you mean?

A: Well, I've obviously always lived a pretty charmed life. And it's not like I'm facing any real hardship now, at all, my mantra of "I remain the luckiest man alive" is at least metaphorically genuinely true. But it's fair to say that the bloom is off the rose, or, I've lost some of my sheen or something.

B: Well, it's not like anybody was cheering for you to get your comeuppance.

A: I hope not. I feel like everyone has been rooting for me, you know? I haven't picked up any schadenfreude vibes or anything from anyone. But yeah, so anyway, I feel like I understand other people better. I've moved beyond a sort of intellectual understanding of certain kinds of pain, to really being able to ID with people struggling with various things. And everyone's circumstances are different obviously, and most people's are still way tougher than mine, and there are better or worse, or at least healthier and less healthy ways of dealing with things, but yeah, I feel like I can appreciate people more, see where they're coming from better.

B: Well, that's a good thing right?

A: It should be. It definitely should be. But at this point, yeah, I don't know. I really don't like it. I've always had this sort of snotty attitude toward the people in history's garbage bin who went down arguing for their own exceptionalism. You know, "What's the problem, Pope Whatever? Does it blow your narrow little mind that the Earth is just another planet, that the universe doesn't orbit us? Are you too parochial to really grok that humans aren't special cases, that we fit right into the spectrum of the great apes?" And now, yeah. I don't know. I've definitely lost my snotty attitude there.

B: Well, this is your boy's thing, right, DFW? Doesn't This is Water talk about the importance of an Other-centered outlook, and compassion and companionship towards your fellow man? How you don't want to be "Master of a tiny skull-sized kingdom" and all that? Even Einstein had something about this, he wrote it in his neighbor boy's yearbook or something

A: Look

B: I mean, you're human, man, and this stuff is all part of the human experience, it really is

A: Look look look. You're right, you're right, you're totally right. Honest to God, I believe you. I'm just not there yet, I'm not.

B: I get that, it's ok, man.

A: I hope it is.

between a man and his unsupportive friend(?), one hightop over at The Green Eye October 20, 2011

A: You enjoying your newfound freedom, man?

B: Haha, I guess so. I stayed up way too late playing Batman on Tuesday, and I've had pizza for dinner every night this week. So I guess I'm either a recently divorced 28 year old man or a fifteen year kid who's parents are out of town for the week, haha. And I haven't been to the gym in forever, it's getting bad. But yeah, nothing too crazy obviously.

A: Why is that obvious?

B: Well, it's not like I'm going to go nuts and buy a car, or a... hooker, or whatever you're supposed to buy.

A: You should, you should get a prostitute.

B: Yeah, well, clearly, I'm not going to do that.

A: Have you gotten laid yet?

B: Heh, no. But I'm working on it!

A: You should bang Amy.

B: I'm not going to sleep with Amy.

A: You totally could.

B: Yeah, I'm sure, but I don't know. ... I get the sense that it's probably good for her to have a male friend who's not sleeping with her, you know? I think that's sort of a new thing for her. I feel like I have to rep Good Dudes a little there.

A: You're pathetic, you know that?

B: Screw you.

A: No, seriously. You've been cooped up for five? years.

B: Eight, almost nine.

A: Christ. Nine years. And now you're turning down sex. You're chicken.

B: Look, I'm not going to sleep with her just to prove a point, or give myself +5 ego points or whatever. That's gross. I'd wake up at her place and think, "Great, you're just like all those other piece of shit guys that banged Amy cause she's hot. Way to go, self."

A: You wouldn't feel like that.

B: Yeah, I totally would.

A: Have you ever done something like that before?

B: No, and I like that. I want to keep it that way.

A: That's what I'm saying though, you're just scared. You have no idea how'd you feel. You want to think that you'd feel like a piece of shit, but you don't know. Maybe you'd wake up without a single thought besides a mental high five to yourself. Maybe you'd tell her you love her just to see what she does. Maybe you wouldn't feel anything at all. You don't know, and you're afraid to find out.

B: Look

A: You have a huge opportunity here man, you're so lucky and you don't even know it, you can totally reboot your life. You can do anything you want to, and you're totally pussing out on the whole thing.

B: But I like who I am, and who I was, I do. And besides, I'm not some Nietzschean straw man, I'm not going to use another person as a, as a stepstool on my climb to be the Ubermensch. That's horrible.

A: Alright, we'll get rid of the other person. Let's do coke. You're rich now, give me two hundred bucks. I'll be back in a half hour. We'll do a ton of blow tonight, it'll be great.

B: No way, you just want me to buy.

A: We both know that's not true. I'll buy it. We'll meet at your place in a half hour, it'll be super fun. <stands up>

B: Dude, I'm not... I'm not going to do coke.

A: <sits back down>Exactly. And why not? What possible reason could you have for turning down free cocaine?

B: I just don't want to.

A: Who doesn't? The you of the last nine years, or the you now?

B: They're the same person!

A: That's what I'm saying! You should be embarrassed about that! That's a shame, that's a real honest to God shame. You're a total chicken shit.

B: Hey, fuck you, I like who I am.

A: You're just a prisoner who got pardoned, took two steps outside, and pitched his tent. Pathetic. Just pathetic.

at the Kit Kat Lounge October 03, 2011

A: My new goal is to live "Off the book"

B: "Off the grid" you mean?

A: No, the book. I heard this thing on NPR about how there is this big book of every chess games, all the tournament ones at least, and so, you know, there's semi-formalized openings, so the beginnings of good games are all "on the book", they've all been done before, you know, that game for the first ten moves or whatever has literally been played potentially thousands of times. But then, there is some point n moves in where the game goes "off the book", and both players if they're good, know it, they know that moment, and there's this intense sort of release and now they both know that they're literally in an undefined space, no one has ever played this game before, and there's a total freedom there, they're blazing their own trail.

B: So you want to get out of your super obvious Captain White-Collar w/ a Predictable Slight Leftist-Academic Bent book?

A: Hey, be nice. At least I'm not reading from the I'm Not Reading from Any Book Because I'm a Musician, Oh Wait, I Was Just Reading from the Musician Book and I Like Money and Food Too It Turns Out So I Better Get a Job.

B: Buurrrrrn. But the idea of the book is dumb, it's naive to be like "This game has never happened before" when maybe that exact configuration hasn't, but the whole point of getting good at chess is recognizing larger patterns, bigger chunks. Maybe like an exact configuration hasn't happened, but, you know, "White is attacking with his queen from the left and black has both knights gone and a rook up the right side" or whatever, that's happened.

A: Right but

B: Otherwise, it's dumb, everything's off the book, right? We're off the book right now, because you and I have never had this conversation at this time with this same configuration of atoms in the universe. But, you know, Pseudo-Deep Person Expresses Anxiety Regarding the Predictable Track His Life Is On While His Friend Listens Disinterestedly or Even Openly Antagonistically, this situation has obviously happened before. Although, normally the anxious person is a stoned 19 year old, not a sober 26?

A: 28

B: 28-year old.

A: So

B: And besides, isn't this super-related to your fantasy where you commit some kind of unspeakable act and are henceforth exiled to the wilderness and removed forever from any future human contact? Because you're a monster?

A: Well, technically the fantasy there is sinking so low that there is no one left to disappoint, no one left that loves you. And the freedom that comes from that. But yeah, otherwise, totally, the Off the Book is just a reframing of the Unclean fantasy, they're isomorphic.

at the Argo Tea on Fifth and LaGrange September 08, 2011

A: You know how there's a bunch of celiacs all of a sudden, right?

B: People allergic to wheat gluten?

A: Yeah.

B: Well, "all of a sudden" is probably a weird way to characterize that, right?

A: Numbers are definitely way, way up.

B: But is that just like a reporting thing? Like, you know, we would've characterized a Pilgrim with celia as just having a bad stomach or whatever, but now we can diagnose it more specifically. Is that all it is?

A: No, trust me dude, numbers are way up.

B: Uh, ok. Sure. Is this going somewhere or...

A: I've got this great theory here, insight really.

B: Great.

A: So, here it is. Someone's stomach starts hurting a lot, their intestines go south

B: When they eat wheat gluten, because they're allergic to wheat gluten, yes.

A: That part's irrelevant.

B: It's super not.

A: Regardless, someone's stomach starts hurting, they go to the doctor, doc says, "Yo dawg, you're allergic to wheat gluten", patient MAKES A CHOICE to stop eating wheat gluten, they get better. They're cured. Anything about that smell weird to you?

B: No, not at all. But I can tell by the way that you yelled "makes a choice" that it smells weird to you.

A: Exactly! What if these people aren't allergic to wheat gluten at all, but rather

B: Allergic to making decisions?

A: No, allergic to NOT making decisions

B: Oh right

A: Yeah, we all are! We're the only animal that can make a genuine conscious decision, and we almost never do! And so-called celiacs, especially, it seems, don't make decisions in their day-to-day life, and whatever shred of genuine humanity they have sputtering away in their darkened and airless hearts rebels, and it tries to strong arm them into making a real decision. What was the last decision you made?

B: Uhhh, I went to Burrito Beach instead of Potbelly's with everyone else.

A: Great, why did you do that?

B: I had Potbelly's last night.

A: So you actually thought, "I had Potbelly's last night, I'll CHOOSE something else?"

B: Well, no, it just didn't sound very good, but that's because I had it last night.

A: Exactly! You're just retconning your own subconscious process there! You just choose the place that would satisfy your own stupid, unthinking, animal hunger most effectively! You didn't choose!

B: And... that's me. Peace!

A: You can choose what to eat! You can choose how to spend your money! You can choose whom to love! Choose! Make a choice, be conscious! It's our birthright!

at Logan Hardware September 08, 2011

A: There's a million of these! You know, uh, If you're a healthy adult then you can find satisfaction on your own, you know, you can enjoy solitary pleasures, you don't need Facebook validation for good or interesting things that happen to you, while yet, at the same time, "Happiness is best when shared with others." Right? So, reconcile.

B: Well, I think

A: Or, you know, modulo the recent economic downturn, America is an incredibly prosperous nation that has been extremely successful at providing the necessary food, products, and shelter to make its citizens happy, but the ethics that have served as the engine of this prosperity also work to promulgate an extreme materialism in its population that contributes exactly zero to its peoples' net happiness. You know, are these two outcomes necessarily intertwined?

B: In this case

A: Or, "Your head makes a terrible home", right? Nothing is guaranteed to drain the color out of your world and make you unhappy more quickly than living in your head and analyzing and considering and hashing and rehashing everything that has happened to you in the past and could happen to you in the future. "Live in the moment", the concept of Buddhist No-Mind, the satisfaction of throwing caution to the wind. Yet, conversely, we've only got one life right? You don't want to throw caution to the wind and blast yourself all over a half mile of highway doing 100 miles an hour. You don't want to Live in the Moment your way to a baby when you're 15. And besides, don't we have some kind of divine or ethical obligation to use our minds and reason to promote the happiness and deep metaphysical satisfaction of ourselves and others?

B: The answer to all of these is just "Balance", right?

A: Actually, there is no answer because THESE WERE ALL INTENDED TO BE RHETORICAL. Ass.

at Zulu Warriors' September 04, 2011

A: Yeah, I've found that Inside Your Own Head is second only to Up Your Own Asshole as places where you least want to live your life.

B: Nice. You've had that one in your pocket for awhile, haven't you?

A: You know it.

B: Spittin' writtens, son!

A: What what?

between two programmers, (heatedly) discussing what they look for in a mate August 30, 2011

A: Hey, speaking of, how'd it go with Whos-its-butts?

B: You mean Kim?

A: Yeah, what did I say?

B: Very funny. It went terribly, if you must know.

A: Aw, sorry man.

B: Well, it's not my fault

A: Sure

B: There was a large wait for a table.

A: You went to that new Indian place by you, right?

B: Correct, Golden Bombay.

A: Right.

B: There was a large wait, but fortunately they had a bar.

A: Nice.

B: Correct. We each had two drinks at the bar, then finally got a table and sat down. We looked at the menu, and I suggested that we could split a bottle of wine, to which she replied, "No, I wouldn't drink much, I've already had the two." Which would be fine, but she then said, "I normally would've had just one, but I was kind of nervous about the date and everything, we Gemini are always kind of nervous."

A: I'm actually a Gemini, too.

B: But surely you don't believe in astrology!

A: Yeah, no, I don't read horoscopes or anything. But so what was the bad part of the date?

B: That was the bad part! She goes so far as to read her horoscope almost daily, I asked. She truly believes that garbage.

A: Yeah, but it's not like it's the focal point of her life or anything right? She's not a professional palm reader or something.

B: Doesn't matter. Does not matter one bit. You either live in the real world, or you live in a fantasy world. Either/or. You don't get to own a cellphone, or use the internet, or ride in a plane on one hand, and on the other hand, genuinely think that the alignment of the planets on the day you're born matters one bit with regards to your personality.

A: Jesus, dude, you're being an asshole. She's a cool girl.

B: I used to think so, too. But now I know

A: Look

B: NOW I KNOW that she is not, in fact, because her own internal belief-system is so inconsistent with itself, that it's painfully clear that's she's never thought or considered--even shallowly--what the world actually is.

A: Look

B: She's never even considered for a second how her whole day to day life is powered by science and technology and computers, and those all ONLY WORK BECAUSE MATERIALISM IS TRUE, except but apparently for her that's all well and good for most of the time, but every once in awhile she gets to special plead up to some stellar constellation who is apparently also alive and cares deeply about magically shaping the personalities of a particular species of great apes, namely us, when really

A: LOOK! You understand that you don't have to actually implement this poor girl, right? You don't need to build her! You don't need to maintain her! You don't have to write unittests for her edgecases! You don't have to architect her and then roll your snotty little eyes when you have to give her mild interest in horoscopes its own little oval shape with an arrow on the system diagram, right? Do you understand that?

B: Well

A: Do you understand that deep internal consistency has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on what it means to be a person that you want to spend time with? Do you really get that deriving an entire fucking personality from three axioms is not a Good Thing? Do you feel deeply that a life that gives Stephen Wolfram and a bunch of other complex systems nerds a hard-on is not a life worth living, right?

B: Surely

A: I'm picturing you now on your dream date, with some girl that has the same stupid dead face as you, and you both order the same stupid dish, and then you each write down who you are on a napkin, and you're both stupid and proud of yourself that you fit on a napkin, that YOU, not a description, or a profile, or anything else, but actually YOU, who YOU are, fits on a napkin, and neither of you takes that for the obscenity that it is, and then you two exchange napkins, and read each other's, and then you just lean back a little bit and you each live your whole life together, each separately in your own head. Just running the simulation, you don't need to actually live it, you don't need to spend the time together, you don't need to have the fights, or cook the meals, or make the roadtrips, or share the nights, you don't need any of that to figure out who each other is, or to figure out who you are. You've got it all on the napkin, just run the simulation. And the two of you don't need to talk, or share, it's totally deterministic, you guys are running the exact same simulation in your head, same inputs, same outputs, and by the time the food arrives, you've lived your whole life together, you know everything there is to know, and you're stupid and proud of that fact and you don't understand that it's because you've impoverished your own lives and taken each other down with you. And after dinner, whether you sleep together, or get married, or have kids, none of that matters, those'll all be just memories, everything you do you'll just sleep walk through because you already did it all between the time you ordered and the time the chana masala arrived. You'll be dead and proud that you compressed your life and another's down to ten minutes. Is that what you want? No alarms and no surprises, baby. A life that tastes as good as the inside of your own mouth. Being emperor of the kingdom inside your own skull. Becoming in-bent. Doesn't that shit terrify you, brother? It should. It sure as hell terrifies me.

walking down Lake August 25, 2011

A: Yeah, no, she's older than I thought she was. Not that it matters or anything, I was just surprised that

B: How old is she?

A: I think it's not real public knowledge.

B: Come on.

A: Well. Let's just say, without naming a specific number, that she's either ten years older OR ten years younger than me.

B: So she's 38.

A: I didn't say that.

B: Well, she's clearly not 18.

A: She could be. I said that she could be ten years younger than me.

B: Dude! I'm not blind! She is super clearly not 18!

A: I don't know, I think

B: 18 year olds are in high school! I'm surprised to learn that she's 38, but good gravy. She is clearly not a high school student.

A: Well

B: Was that an honest thing? Were you actually trying to leave me guessing, or was that just a fig leaf so you can claim that you didn't tell me?

A: Oh, you know, I

B: Here's one for you, let's try this one. See how you like it. Either, uhh, yeah, either I banged your sister, or, uh, the moon's made of blue cheese. How about that one. I'm not saying one way or the other.

A: No way did you sleep with Sara, no way.

B: Why don't you hop in your rocketship, fly to the moon and find out?

A: No way, no way

C: What's up nerds? Try this one on: either what I'm saying is true, or what I'm saying is false. So. Paradox, bitches. I'ma dip, I'll catch up with y'all later.

outside Zip, Zap, Zop's August 25, 2011

A: I know, it's crazy. It's like the bizarro world version of "To the Lighthouse".

B: More like from the lighthouse.

A: Heh.

B: ... I don't get the lighthouse reference.

A: "To the Lighthouse". Virginia Woolf.

B: Oh! It's a book! I thought it was just a prepositional phrase.

A: Yeah, no, I got that.

at Carazuna's August 22, 2011

A: I refer, of course, to the existential horror that comes from realizing you've become exactly whom everyone expected you to become.

waiting for the light to change at Sheffield and Davis August 17, 2011

A: Yeah, so that's one thing that I really strong believe about grad school, and the difference between the people who finish and the people that just sort of burn or flake out. I don't know if it's a wholly good thing, actually, but you really just need to feel deep down that you are making progress, you know, and that you coming in on Saturday will actually make a difference, or that your paper will be genuinely better if you go through it one more time. You have to feel that, or at least act as if you feel that, if you're going to make it. The people that survive grad school, in my experience at least, are the people that can convince themselves that they're making progress and doing the "right thing"--for some definition of "right thing"--even when it doesn't feel like it at all.

B: Yeah, man. That's not just grad school, that's life. That's the whole thing.

A: !!!

B: Probity and care, brother, probity and care.

...in the elevator August 11, 2011

A: So you're liking the new place? It seems really nice.

B: Yeah, yeah, for sure. We got really lucky on it.

A: That's great. Seems like it's a nice neighborhood, too, I saw that little grocery store across the street.

B: The Hispanic place?

A: Yeah.

B: Yeah, I was actually sort of disappointed with that. I went in last week hoping for some good fresh, cheap, salsa or something. And they had some salsa, but it was all brands I recognized and everything, just that stuff in jars. They had a butchery in there too, beef tongue and all that shit.

A: What did you expect, a bunch of smiling Hispanic folks making fresh guacamole or something?

B: No, I don't know, I

A: "Sho' is a hot day out, eh massa Mark? You white folk be wantin' any fresh salsa? We poor Mexican jus' looove smiling and making salsa for white folks like yourself, nice and fresh like!"

B: That's not what Hispanic racist caricatures sound like.

A: No, but seriously. They're poor

B: Low income

A: They're low income people like anybody else. It's not like you walk into a little grocery store in a poor white area and a bunch of people are sitting around making great fresh potato salad or veggie trays or whatever.

B: But it's different in Mexico right?

A: I don't know, it could be. I can imagine in some genuine Mexican village, a bunch of women get together and crank out the salsa and tortillas for the week or whatever. I really have no idea.

B: But yeah. You're right, those guys are way different culturally than the people in my neighborhood, who default to speaking Spanish, but otherwise work all day and come home tired and not wanting to cook like everybody else.

A: Yeah, exactly.

B: Yeah, good call.

A: So, just to confirm. They don't have any like, fresh hot tamales ready to go at all times there right? Cause I am starving, and some green chili tamales sound fricking great.

B: I know, right?!

near Belle's View June 08, 2011

A: He's the kind of guy, you know that one day he's just going to crawl up his own asshole and disappear.

B: I have no idea what kind of guy that is.

on a tramway May 29, 2011

A: I'm working on a life philosophy.

B: What's it about?

A: Life. I... I don't understand what you're asking.

B: No, I mean, is it like how to have a good life, noble virtues and stuff?

A: Maybe? I don't really know what it applies to yet, exactly. It's more of a formulation. More descriptive than prescriptive.

B: Is it proscriptive?

A: Is that a word?

B: I think so.

A: Well I don't know then.

B: Sorry for interrupting, go on.

A: Yeah, so it's based around Four Pillars, and they are Friends, Family, Job, and Love. In no particular order.

B: I think you're forgetting a Pillar.

A: What?

B: The Fifth Pillar is... You.

A: Oh, I just got chills.

B: No, shut up. I think it's legit to have a "Self Pillar" or whatever.

A: But the Four Pillars make up your Self. There doesn't need to be an explicit Self Pillar.

B: Well, without a Self Pillar, there's no slot for attitude, or self-confidence, or feelings of self-worth and all that stuff. You can have somebody, you know, who seems to have the Four Pillars on lock, but they're still not happy. So there must be something else, the Fifth Pillar.

A: Yeah, alright. Self is in. There's five pillars now in the philosophy.

B: Wait, that was all it took? Your life philosophy just grew by 25% after a five minute conversation.

A: So? Adapt or die baby.

B: Somewhere, Occam is weeping.

A: Tears of joy, I bet.

B: ... You don't know who Occam is, do you?

A: No, not at all.

waiting for my falafel at Pomegranate May 17, 2011

A: Yeah, so... Bought some flowers yesterday.

B: For whom?

A: For myself. ... I just thought they'd be kind of nice in the apartment. Look nice.

B: ...

A: I know.

B: You know what I'm going to say here, man, but I gotta say it. Don't get weird.

A: I know.

B: You gotta not get weird, seriously man.

A: I

B: It's going to happen. It's happening already! You have some random, weird thought, "Wow, some flowers would be nice! Well why not? They're even on sale! I'll buy some for my apartment!" And the subconscious part of your brain is malfunctioning right now, we all know that, and the part that's going to keep you from getting weird will be preoccupied, and the weirdness will slip through. And you'll go home and put flowers on your nightstand or whatever.

A: It's totally reasonable to buy flowers. They look nice!

B: I know they do, brother, I know they do. And that's the shame of it really. But I'll tell you what's going to happen. You're going to buy those flowers, and you're not going to be thinking one day, or God help you, you're going to think it will actually impress someone, and you're going to bring up that you bought flowers. And they're going to think you're weird. They won't know you like I do. You know I love you. I know why you got flowers, man, I understand. You remember me last year. I've been there. But no one else will know. They'll just think you're weird.

A: Well. Fine. Jesus. They're just a plant.

B: Remember Friday? Remember that? Remember when Tabitha came kind of late, and asked you how it was going, and you were kind of drunk by then, and you told her? And everybody got really quiet, and it was weird?

A: ... Yeah.

B: Yeah man, you gotta not do that. Seriously. I mean it, it will bite you. You'll think you're being liberated, or free, or whatever, but you're just being weird. You gotta not be weird. Promise?

A: Yeah, man, it's

B: Promise?

A: Yeah. Yeah, I promise.

on the 22, headed west on Diversey May 16, 2011

A: Hey man, did you see the new iPhone screen?

B: No, what's the deal?

A: Well, it's just rumors, but it looks like it's going to stretch all the way to the very edge of the device.

B: It's like that already, though, right?

A: Well, it's pretty close. <Pulls out phone> But see how there's like an eighth of an inch of space on the sides? <Puts away phone> It looks like that's going away. Pretty neat, huh?

B: Yeah, sounds cool. When is it out?

A: September supposedly. Don't you follow this stuff? It was all over AppleInsider and DaringFireball today. HackerNews and TechMeme too.

B: Yeah, I stopped following all that stuff. I realized that none of it matters.

A: Woaaah. Deep.

B: No, sorry, not like that. I mean, it doesn't matter if I know about it, you know? It's either going to come out or it's not. If it does, I'll probably buy it. If it doesn't, it's not like I'll miss it or anything.

A: Well, what's the point of anything then? Not much requires your personal attention to occur.

B: Well, it can still affect me. If I read a book, it changes me in some way. It can alter my internal life, or give me a new outlook, or something to think about or whatever. Even like crappy TV can pick up my mood. Reading Apple gossip has literally no effect on me.

A: But you're interested in it. That's its own justification.

B: I don't know if it is. I'm interested in ice cream, too, it doesn't mean I should eat it all the time.

A: Ice cream is actively bad for you, though.

B: Opportunity cost, brother. Reading Apple news is bad for me too, because it's time I could of spent doing something more valuable.

A: Well, well, big time. What's this humanitarian mission you're going to be working on in your spare time?

B: I'm still working on that part. Anything's better than iPhone rumors, though, seriously.

waiting for tacos at Lone Star May 15, 2011

A: So, heard you went to Vincent's last night.

B: Heh. Yep. Who told you that?

A: Mark.

B: Yeah, I figured. I have no idea why I told him that I was going, I was in a hurry to get off GTalk and sort of spilled it.

A: Haha.

B: Did he have any thoughts on the matter?

A: No, he just mentioned it in passing. I'm sure he has some opinion, but he didn't express it or anything.

B: Well, what do you think?

A: I don't know, man. It seems like something that you need to figure out. It doesn't matter what Mark or I think.

B: Well. I don't think what to think about it either. I was hoping that you two would share some strong opinion, and I could just sort of latch onto that as the correct one.

A: I don't think it's that easy.

B: Yeah. I'm starting to agree.

at Docker's December 21, 2010

A: I mean, look. If you find that your life circumstances are being sung about in pop songs, you gotta stop what you're doing. You have to. If you're listening to, you know, K- or W-Top 40 whatever, and you catch yourself thinking, "Man, that sounds like what I'm going through right now!" you gotta back out of whatever situation you're in, pronto.

B: Does that apply to indie songs too?

A: Heartfelt, earnest guitar indie, or ironic power-pop indie?

B: Both.

A: Neither.

B: Uhh, ok. Well, I mean. Are you ok with recognizing yourself, or your situation in a book? Aren't you just being a snob with the pop-music thing?

A: Well, it depends on the book.

B: Hemingway.

A: Sure, that's fine.

B: Fitzgerald.

A: Naturally.

B: Crichton.

A: Eeeehh.

B: Yeah. "Life finds a way", bro. Are you man enough to ID with Jeff Goldblum?

A: Well, look. There's a big difference here, about the actual goal of the piece of art or content, you know. Hemingway or Fitzgerald, they were clearly trying to say something. They were trying to figure themselves out, or figure the world out, and so I don't feel bad, you know, if I'm part of that journey for them or whatever. And, you know. With regards to music. If I hear an Elliott Smith song, or a Microphones song, or a Mountain Goats song, or Joanna Newsom, or any of those guys, I don't worry about recognizing myself there. I find value and comfort or at least interest there. They are clearly sincere people, sincerely working on things, and that's, you know. That's great. That's what we should all be doing.

B: I agree that Lady GaGa or Kei$ha or whatever, they're not sincere in the same way Elliott Smith is. But I think you're giving them a hard time, man. I think you should take your insights, you know, and your self-assessments or -recognitions wherever you can get them. I think it's entirely possible that Lady GaGa could sort of back into something that has real, valuable resonance for someone at a particular point in their life.

A: I guess. It's like the existential equivalent of Shaggy leaning against the candelabra that rotates around to reveal the secret passage.

B: Yeah, exactly. You know, if you're looking for something, you're clearly better off with Daphe/Joanna or Fred/Elliott. The odds are clearly better that they're going to find the object/turn of phrase that unlocks the secret entrance/next stage of your life. But don't discount GaGa/Shaggy, they still have effectors, they still cause change.

in the mall at Diversey and Clark December 18, 2010

A: Hey man, what're the two albums you can't listen to anymore?

B: What?

A: On Facebook. You said something along the lines of "Well, I guess I can't listen to that album anymore. Or that one either." What're the two albums?

B: Oh, yeah, that. ... You know. Say, what're you doing for Christmas? Are you with Jane's family this year, or at yours?

A: No, I don't know, I have no idea what the two albums are. Did they get overplayed or something? Did you puke this morning to one of them?

B: No, it's not that, it's. Well, let's just say, you know, certain things have changed, so now they have some emotional resonance or whatever that they didn't use to you, and, you know. I don't like listening to them anymore.

A: So, you don't want to talk about it?

B: No, not at all, sorry. I really ju

A: Then don't put it on Facebook! Don't have obvious comment and question elicitations and then be cagey or weird or whatever when you get comments or questions!

B: Look

A: Why did you put it up there at all? Was it some passive-aggressive thing at Beth? Does she know what the two albums are?

B: I mean... yeah, it was directed at her, I guess, but... No, I don't think she has any idea what the CDs are, I can't imagine anyone does.

A: What does it mean then that Beth's mom Liked it?

B: ?

A: What could she possibly think your post meant?

B: I don't know!

A: What possible interpretation could she have, you know, what in the world does she think you meant?

B: I DON'T KNOW!

on the Purple Line Express December 02, 2010

A: Well, it must be nice having your 20% time like that. Play around with different projects and stuff without having to be directly accountable or on the clock or whatever.

B: Well, you have that time too, right?

A: Me? No way, I mean, we get our sort of tasks or stories or whatever for the week, and, you know, they're sort of expected to get done, so

B: It's Saturday.

A: Pardon?

B: Your 20% time. It's Saturday.

A: ... That's totally different.

B: No it's not. It's a decision you're making. It's fine if you don't want to spend your Saturday's working on projects, but you should acknowledge that decision.

seated on a blustery park bench December 01, 2010

Kindensian thought leader: That's one of the first things a child learns: the physical and conceptual difference between themselves and their environment. And that's the first thing you have to forget. You are not a Mind in a Figure, surrounded by Ground. You are Ground. It's all Ground, inside and out. You don't think thoughts, any more than a fire thinks flames.

on my machine November 29, 2010

A: Have we closed the loop?

B: We have, indeed!

outside Buh-Toodles July 13, 2010

A: Hey man, you make the big decision yet?

B: Nope! But I've gotten to the point where I can consider my options without rubbing my head out of anxiety and visibly sweating.

A: Progress!

at the corner by Barnes & Nobles July 06, 2010

A: Man, I gotta go shopping. I need like three more button up shirts, and some khaki type deals.

B: The new place has a dress code like that?

A: No, but there is a super clear division dress-wise between the engineers and interns, and the management. You know, "Dress for the job you want, not the job you have" and all of that.

B: Yeah, that's why I always wear this space suit!

A: ... Wah wah.

B: Yeah, I know. See, I was originally going to say "robes"

A: Like a monk?

B: Well, see, I was thinking Supreme Court Judge, but yeah, I knew it was confusing. Then I was thinking "super powered iron suit"

A: Being Iron Man isn't a job

B: Yeah, exactly! And then I saw you were about to go for it

A: Yeah, I was gonna say "fireman's uniform"

B: Sure. So yeah, I panicked, and "space suit" was the best I could come up with.

A: Yeah, that's fine.

B: Yeah, I thought it turned out OK.

underground at the Y July 04, 2010

A: I forgot to tell you about this dream I had last night!

B: I don't want to hear this.

A: There's a point to it, I promise.

B: Make it quick.

A: Ok, so the dream was that Beth and I went to an Apple store, and they were having a sort of sale, where if you prank called this certain number at Microsoft and made fun of whoever answered, they'd give you $150 off your purchase that day at the Apple store.

B: Great.

A: Yeah, and to advertise it, they had this big poster sort of thing, with these pull quotes from different satisfied customers. So it had stuff like, "'My new Mac makes video editing fun and easy!' - Amanda S." or "'My new MacBook plays the latest games!' - Justin R."

B: Ok.

A: And then one of them was just, "'Please stop calling. Please' - Steve. B". !!!

B: So...

A: It was Steve Ballmer! They got a humiliating, plaintive request from Steve Ballmer to put on the billboard, just to rub it in that he couldn't stop them from calling! It ws so mean!

B: What's the point then?

A: Well, in ANOTHER dream that night, I referred to this dream! But not as a dream, as it actually happening!

B: So?

A: Well, just get this. There were two girls that I hung out with in high school, all three of us were friends, and we all basically stopped hanging out after school. And like a month ago, I had a dream where I hung out with one of them!

B: Great.

A: It was fine. But then, the same night I had the dream about the Apple Store, I had a THIRD dream where I hung out with the other one of the three! And in that dream, I said that I had recently seen the other one!

B: <Shakes head>

A: Rather than each dream being self-contained, it seems like my dreams are vignettes taking place in a single, coherent universe!

B: Brilliant. So if you have a dream in one of your dreams, are you actually just remembering the real world?

A: Unclear! I don't know if the real world and the dream world are two-sides of the same coin

B: They're not

A: Well, conceptually

B: No, not even conceptually

A: Metapho

B: Nope.

A: Anyways, it's unclear if each world is accessible by the other through dreaming, or whether it's more of a hierachy, with the real world at the bottom and each dream world above it having one way access to the dream world one level up.

B: But if that's so, HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT WHAT WE CALL THE REAL WORLD ISN'T JUST A LONG DREAM??

A: !!! I just got chills.

B: Jesus. You're really easy to freak out.

near Who-Haas July 04, 2010

A: I mean, we've talked about this, but it's just crazy the stuff people put on Facebook. It's not my theory, but it really does seem like some of these people feel like their emotions or experiences aren't real unless they're demonstrated and sort of paraded in front of other people, you know?

B: Yeah. Sometimes I worry that that's sort of our fault.

A: We as men?

B: No, we as scientists.

A: Eeeh. Are we calling that a science?

B: Well, science enthusiasts then. We're the ones always going on about evidence and materialism and all that.

A: I don't really think

B: Look, all I'm saying is that if we're going to give someone a hard time if they show up in a room and say, "Wow, I saw and talked with God last night!" then we shouldn't be surprised if those same people start giving us evidence that they are upset over breaking up with their boyfriend, or that they're grieving their miscarriage, or that they think their husband is great or whatever.

A: And in these cases, the evidence is really tacky images, maudlin couplets, and hominies about walking on the beach with Jesus?

B: Yes.

between a 20ish grad student and an older man July 02, 2010

A: Well, we've talked about this before, but one of the big advantages of getting married

B: Of which there are many!

A: sure, for sure. But one of them is that you get a nice shorthand for your relationship, you know? I can say "my wife" and you sort of know what's going on there. It's a lot more convenient than "My girlfriend, who I have been dating for eight years and lived with for the past five"

B: "Whom".

A: What?

B: I think it's "whom", not "who". "Whom I've been dating."

A: Oh, well, regardless. There's no shorthand for this, you know? Or rather, there is shorthand but it's all misleading, I can talk to somebody, like, "Oh, my wife Beth", "Oh, you have a wife? I'd love to meet her!", "Well, she's actually living in Connecticut right now", "Oh, you're split up?", "Well, sort of, but", "So you're separated?", "Well, technically, but", "You two parted ways?", "I mean, not really", "She moved out?", "Well, when you put it like that", "So she left you?", "Well, I guess we sort of left each other, but really it's more..." I hate it, it drives me crazy.

B: It seems like many phrases that are referring to emotional separation are metaphors grounded in physical separation.

A: ... yeah. I don't like it! And I don't think they really apply anymore, or they can but they don't have to, with Skype and planes and email and IM and texting and everything.

B: Well, when Mary and I did this

A: You guys split up or lived apart or ?

B: Yeah, haha, whatever you want to call it. It was years ago now, and we were only apart for nine months, so it's a little easier than it was for you. Although it was only supposed to be six months, and those last three were pretty hard. She finished up before I did, and we both had jobs lined up in San Francisco, so she went ahead and moved out and started paying down her loans while I was writing and getting a couple more papers out.

A: Yeah, exactly! See, that's a totally reasonable thing to do! That makes perfect sense.

B: I think it was the right decision, looking back. And it was easy for her, she got to tell everyone that I was "finishing up and writing", and everyone sort of got that, and that I would be coming out soon.

A: Sure.

B: And for her, I finally settled on saying that she was "In California, working".

A: Ok.

B: I thought it nicely evoked a parent in the olden days going off to Kansas to lay railroad track or farm, and sending money back home.

A: Sure. Noble.

B: Yeah, exactly. And I thought, and I guess I still do really, that "In California, working" sounds much better than "Working in California". I don't know why. So I always told people "She is out in California, working, and I'll be out there soon once I finish up here."

between two males in their late 20s July 01, 2010

A: Hey man, how was Connecticut?

B: Oh, pretty good. Turns out the apartment is really nice, and Beth is all settled in and everything, so that's good.

A: Great. So you guys just have to sort of tough it out for two years now, huh?

B: Well, just for a few weeks, actually.

A: Wait, what?

B: Yeah, I'll see her again in a few weeks, we are both flying out to Portland for a wedding.

A: Oh, great. But then you're coming back to Chicago and she's back East, right?

B: Yeah, yeah. For a month or so at least.

A: A month? does she not think it's going to work?

B: Oh, no, it sounds like it's going to work great. But she'll be coming back to Chicago about a month after the wedding.

A: Just to visit, though, right?

B: Yeah, it's for her birthday, long weekend over Memorial or Labor Day, whichever one is in Fall.

A: Ok, and then she's back to Connecticut. I mean, it's like a normal two-year postdoc right?

B: Well, we'll see. I'll be out there five or six weeks after she comes back for her birthday.

A: You're moving out there, too?

B: No, no, it's just for the weekend.

A: So

B: And then

A: I mean, I have this right, right? You're staying in Chicago, and she's going to Connecticut for two years, and then moving back, right?

B: Well,

A: And you guys will obviously see each other regularly over those two years, which is great of course, but the gist is that she'll be out there for two years while you stay here, yeah?

B: I mean,

A: Cause that's definitely what Beth was saying at the BBQ, did something change?

B: IT IS A LOT EASIER TO LIE TO YOURSELF WHEN YOUR FRIENDS AREN'T CONSTANTLY CORRECTING YOU!

A: I don't... oh. Oh oh oh! I get it!

B: Correct!

A: Well, then. So I heard Beth was going to be out East for a few weeks.

B: Yep!

A: Well that won't be too bad! She was gone about that long when she went to that long conference in Greece, right?

B: Exactly! It'll be just like that, that wasn't bad at all!

between some newly-minted PhDs, right after graduation July 01, 2010

A: Well, you should be proud.

B: I have big issues with the concept of "pride", though. It seems like sort of definitionally, all my choices are a product of you know, Nature and Nurture, plus my environment or whatever, and all three of those are totally beyond my control. So I don't think I can be proud of anything. I can't be proud that my parents raised me well, you know, or that I have a lot of brain genes.

A: So your parents can be proud of you, though?

B: Yeah, because they raised me. They can indirectly sort of take credit for the Nature part, and directly take credit for the Nurture part. So they can be proud they did a good job raising me, sure.

A: But if you can't be proud of your own actions, because they are a combination of factors you don't have control over, why can your parents be proud of you?

B: What do you mean?

A: If you can't be proud of studying hard, because it's a factor of your parents giving you "study genes" and teaching you the importance of studying hard, why can your parents be proud of raising you well? Their actions were just a combination of THEIR parents giving them "raising kids well" genes and teaching them the importance of raising children well.

B: It recurses!

A: The base case is God! The Prime Mover!

C: Hey guys! I have a virtually identical argument with the same conclusion, but it's based on a naturalistic view of the universe not allowing free will! It's the same argument with the same conclusion, but at a lower level of abstraction!

A: !!!

B: !!!

C: I know, right?! I bet this argument has been discovered and rediscovered tens of thousands of times throughout human history!

D: I bet that if any of you guys had taken even an Introduction to Philosophy class, you'd all be way less impressed with yourselves right now.

between an American-sounding male, an American-sounding female, and an Eastern European-sounding male (Polish?), all in their late 20s July 01, 2010

A: Yeah, well I'm fine with people being vegans, obviously, more power to them, but I just hate that argument, you know, that's like "If people were supposed to drink milk as adults, we would all possess that enzyme for breaking down cows' milk."

B: I think that's lactase, but yeah, I hate that argument, too. Has no one ever explained the whole "There's a difference between 'Is' and 'Ought' to these people?"

C: What do you mean, with "ought?"

A: "Ought", O-U-G-H-T. It's sort of an old-fashioned word now, I guess.

B: Yeah, it's one of those words that only really appears in phrases these days, but it basically means "should".

C: Ah, I see. So back in the older days, one father might tell his child "You ought milk the cows."

A: Yeah, basically, but I think you would actually say "You ought TO milk the cows."

B: Right, so it's the same idea as "should", but it's, uh, I guess it's a verb?

A: Yeah, you could change that sentence to "Bill loved to milk the cows", so it's the same part of speech as "loved", which is a verb right?

B: Yeah, it's the past, uh, past participle of the verb "to love" so you can just change it to "Bill love to ", wait, why doesn't that work?

A: ... I don't know if "loved" is a verb. Wait, no, no, you just conjugated it wrong, you would change it to "Bill loves to milk the cows", which is right.

B: Right, right. Ok, so "ought" is a verb form of the sort of "You should do something" sentiment, and "should", I guess, is a verb modifier? Do they have those?

C: Yes, the adverbs.

A: Right, thanks. Yeah, so "should" is just an adverb, so we should be able to swap in another one, and like "You happily milk the cows", so happily is another adverb

B: And yeah, that's a weird sentence, but it's grammatical. So, to answer your question, "ought" is basically a verb form of the adverb "should".

C: So, then, when you are saying there is a difference between "Is" and "Ought"?

B: Oh, right. Well, it's just pointing out that there can be a difference between the way things are and the way things OUGHT to be. So, you know, the fact that many humans DON'T have lactase doesn't really say anything about the ethics of whether we SHOULD drink cows' milk or not.

C: That is what I thought your meaning is. It is very funny that the argument is easier to understand than the words that are composing the argument!

A: Yeah, it really is.

in the Ford Building, between a male graduate student and a male research scientist May 28, 2010

A: Hold on, I forgot my

B: Purse?

A: It's not a purse, it's a

B: I know, I know, it's a European carry-all. Or a murse!

A: safety blanket.

at a well-attended cocktail party April 26, 2010

A: Doctor! Is anyone a doctor?!

All: <Silence, nervously looking around>

A: Please! Someone help, I need a doctor!

B: Well, I mean, technically, I'm a Ph.D., but I don't think

A: So you're a doctor???

B: I mean, I have a doctorate, but it's in computer science, so I don't

A: Oh thank God! Please, come quickly! Please!

B: Really? Ok, sure, just let me

A: Oh, thank you, thank you so much! It's my router! I think something broke in my router, Hulu is really slow to load, and my son never got the email I sent this morning!

between two computer science graduate students, in line at Chipotle April 14, 2010

A: Keynote's fine, but I still wish I could alter the semantics of the Bold command.

B: What bold command?

A: You know, Command-B. Bolding some text.

B: That's not a command, that's

A: It is too a command.

B: No, dude, it's

A: What is it then? What is it?

B: I don't know dude, but you sound like a tool. "Bold command."

A: Well, regardless, I want to change the semantics of it. The semantics should be "strong", and the implementation of "strong" should be theme specific.

B: Why?

A: Well, in my custom theme, I want the Bold command to render the text in black, but not thicker.

B: Oh yeah? You want to change how the Bold command renders text?

A: I do! I also want the Italicize command to render the text in a monospaced font.

B: Dude, just stop.

A: It works in HTML! We've finally gotten rid, well assuming you're writing valid XHTML, and let's be serious, if you're not you shouldn't be allowed on the internet, but we've finally gotten rid of the "b" and "i" tags, which, let's face it, were leftovers from like, typesetting limitations of the Gutenberg machine or whatever, and replaced them with the genuinely semantic "strong" and "emphasis" tags.

B: You're killing me

A: I don't think it's too much to ask for Apple to adopt some of the HTML conventions of, Oh, I Don't Know, FOUR YEARS AGO, and allow theme-specific implementations of what we used to refer to as the Bold and Italicize commands.

B: Shut up! Nobody cares!

between two twenty-somethings in line at Panera's March 17, 2010

A: Mark said you took that job?

B: Yeah man.

A: Wow, when do you move?

B: August sometime. My start date's September 1st, so before then.

A: Hurm. To be honest with you, I was kind of surprised to hear it from Mark.

B: Why?

A: Well, I would've thought you and I were better friends.

B: Yeah. He was my roommate though. I had to tell him so he could look for a new person, or move or whatever.

A: So, if he wasn't your roommate, you wouldn't've told him first?

B: No.

A: Ok

B: I wouldn't have told you either, though.

A: At all?

B: If I could get away with never telling anyone anything, I would do it. In a heartbeat.

between two graduate students, discussing Daylight Savings Time at The Mill March 17, 2010

A: I had a really crazy thought this morning in the shower about Daylight Savings Time.

B: Great.

A: Yeah, for real. So the idea is this: what if, instead of moving time forward back and

B: Clocks. We move clocks, not time.

A: Sure, but if instead of moving them back and forth an hour twice a year

B: We moved them a little bit each day?

A: AND, and, we move them such that the sun rises and sets at the same time every day!

B: You can't just move them like that, the length of the day would need to change, too.

A: Yeah! Crazy, huh?

B: I mean

A: Like, we would just decide or whatever that the sun rises at 7:30 and set at 6:30 every day.

B: So the sun's only up 11 hours a day? Should probably be 12.

A: Well, seven to seven then.

B: What about when it's winter, and the sun's only up for like 6 hours?

A: Six OLD hours.

B: Whatever.

A: Well, you know, the minutes would just go faster to make up for it. But only when the sun is up! And then, after 7:00 pm, the minutes would have to slow down again! Crazy!

B: But the length of the day varies with your latitude. Would minutes on the equator be different than minutes in Chicago?

A: I guess! I didn't even think of that part! I tell you, this idea just keeps getting crazier and crazier!

B: It's not crazy, it's just dumb. I assume that seconds would scale too?

A: Ehh.... no. That would be toooo crazy! So, seconds would be just like they are now, but you know, minutes would have more or less than 60 seconds.

B: What about Olympic records? You would have to convert them all around all the time.

A: No you wouldn't! You would just record them all in seconds.

B: Ok. Cause I was wondering how you would do speed limits if the length of an hour changed, but you could just do those in seconds too.

A: Yeah, if you didn't mind counting Miles per 3600 seconds! Cause that would be really fun to figure out, wouldn't it? "Oh, let me see, officer, let me just get out my slide rule, and my, my, my abacus or whatever to do these facts and figures to prove that I wasn't speeding because technically there are 3,600 seconds in an hour and when you divide by the square root of the hypotenuse and "

B: I'm not defending this stupid idea! Don't make fun of me for playing along! It doesn't work anyway, because the number of minutes in a hour would change.

A: No, they wouldn't.

B: Well, the seconds in a minute does, then, so it's not just sixty by sixty anymore, it would vary.

A: Well, regardless. Pretty crazy idea, huh?

B: It's not crazy, it's just terrible.

A: I think

B: You can't just consider ridiculously terrible ideas, point out obvious problems with them, and then think you imagined some sort of crazy idea or societal implication or whatever. "Wouldn't it be crazy if on even days we drove on the right side of the road, and on odd days we drove on the left?" "I guess, but it'd certainly be completely stupid!"

A: But it goes really deep! Shows would even have to change their length! A Seinfeld rerun that was supposed to be shown in the winter would be too long when shown in the summer!

B: THAT'S WHY WE DON'T DO IT THAT WAY!

at Al's Deli March 12, 2010

A: Yeah, so Monday I called Tom and told him that I wasn't going to be in. That I was deeply depressed and distracted and that I was just waiting for Tuesday, when I got my answer, and so there was no reason to go in on Monday. And that I was just going to sit on my couch and watch TV and play videogames and try not to think and wait for Tuesday.

B: And he was fine with that?

A: Yeah, I don't take many sick days. But, get this, he asked me instead to do it at his place. Because he was expecting the UPS guy!

B: Sure.

A: Not sure! I was having a hard time, and he wanted me to do him a favor!

B: Well, it was nothing to you, right? If you're just going to be moping on a couch, or pacing or whatever, may as well help someone else out. He's got a TV right?

A: Yeah, cable too.

B: There you go.

A: But I was pretty much a wreck!

B: Your mental state doesn't factor in here, at all. He needed a warm body to stay in his house until the UPS dude showed up; you were a warm body, and explicitly said you had nothing better to do. You were the perfect candidate!

A: I guess

B: Life keeps moving man. Big wheels keep on turning.

A: Lynyrd!

between two youth pushing the limits of hip hop March 08, 2010

A: "Another day, another DOLLAR / Another day spent livin' in SQUALOR / Day-dreamin' of being a BALLER / Wonderin' why... wonderin' why I never CALLED HER"

B: "Emo rap! And... scene!"

between two graduate students discussing their picks for Album of the Year February 19, 2010

A: I'm telling you man, it's great.

B: It's fine. At best.

A: What's your big pick then?

B: Easy. Xela, In Bocca Al Lupo.

A: That's the name?

B: Xela is the name of the group, In Bocca Al Lupo is the album.

A: What does it sound like?

B: Well, there's no instruments or vocals, to start.

A: So

B: It's recordings, mostly. Of machines and... static. The first track is a lot of tape clicking

A: Ok...

B: Actually, scratch that, there's drums on the last song. It's 20 minutes long, so. And there's sort of discordant church bells or something on the first track. So, some instruments.

A: Sounds awful.

B: Well, it's definitely esoteric. It's a headphones listen, that's for sure.

A: That can't honestly be your Best Album of 2009.

B: Oh yeah, big time.

A: Nobody thinks you're cool for saying that.

B: I don't need your approval, I've got my cassette tape clicks, and... actually, there's a lot of church bells in there. Do you want to rip it?

A: Nope, not at all. I have zero desire to get into this kind of wagging contest, of whose iTunes records the most time spent listening to the "Staticky churchbells in the distance" genre.

B: Wise man. I'd've crushed you.

between two twenty-somethings in line at Chipotle, discussing their social schedule February 18, 2010

A: Hey, you coming out this weekend?

B: Naw, having sort of a date night in with Beth.

A: Lame. You never go out.

B: I'm busy dude. We are both just legitimately busy right now.

A: That doesn't mean you can't hang out once in a while.

B: I know it seems like it might not mean that, but for me at least, it totally does. Imagine, if you know, you had like a nine to five job, you showed up at nine, you did your good bit of work, left promptly at five, home by 5:30 say.

A: Weekends?

B: Totally free. Sometimes you would have to help a friend move or whatever, or some other responsibility, but no job stuff.

A: No kids?

B: No kids. So, if that were your life, you know, you would have let's say five hours open Monday through Thursday, and then like, I don't know, thirty hours free over Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So, like 50 hours.

A: 60.

B: No, 50.

A: Yeah, you're right.

B: Yeah. Anyways, so you would break that down someway. You would have time with your spouse or significant other, say ten hours. Let's say you joined an IM team, ten hours. Ten hours with the Lions Club or something.

A: Ten hours with your boys.

B: Sure, and ten hours reading or playing videogames or whatever. So you split your time totally evenly.

A: That's a lot of Lions Club.

B: Doesn't matter. So, now, say, your job picks up, you get a new assignment, parent get sicks so you start driving to see them on the weekend, whatever. So now you're down to ten hours of free time.

A: Sure.

B: So, you might guess, you know, that you just do twenty percent of each hobby, yeah? So, now it's two hours of your wife, two hours with the Lion's Club and everything.

A: Yeah, that's what I'm saying

B: But it doesn't work like that, at least for me. You might think that I like distributing my time evenly, and that's what I'm trying to do, but that's not the case. It's, you know, first I want to spend a lot of time with my wife, so that's the ten hours. And I really like reading, so that's ten hours. And, you know, it turns out that the other thirty hours of leisure, they're great, I like my friends, I like ultimate frisbee, but you know. When time gets compressed, you make choices, and those choices aren't a proportional reduction of hobbies.

A: Lame.

B: It's not lame. And you know, that doesn't even get into issues, of, you know, if you're working a lot, you're tired! And so that also eliminates some possible hobbies, and makes things like kicking it on the couch with your girl, a bottle of wine and some Thai food sound pretty good.

A: Laaaaaaaaaaaaame.

B: No, no. Also, depending on your schedule, your off-time may be split up, or in a weird time slot or whatever. If I have a half hour off everynight, and then every now and then, sort of out of the blue, I end up having an hour, it's not like I get get a frisbee game going right then or anything. And people that work third-shift or whatever, they can have a really hard time meeting people, because their non-work time is so skewed from the norm. Even if they do have free time, no one else does then. My cousin

A: Lay lay lay lame. Lay lay lay laaaaaame.

at Tech Express, between two undergraduate students discussing the merits of a workout, before a third student enters February 17, 2010

A: Yeah, well, I've been hitting the gym pretty heavily.

B: Yeah?

A: Absolutely. I'm up to eighteen veins.

B: What?

A: I've got eighteen veins visible on my body at any one time.

B: Eww, that's nasty. Why are you counting veins?

A: Bigger the muscles, bigger the veins, bro. Gotta feed the machines! They get big enough, you can see them through the skin.

B: That's really gross.

A: No, check out. Three on my right forearm, on the inside, one on the out, that's four, three on my left arm total, one of innies hasn't popped yet. So that's 7.

B: I don't

A: One and one here, that's nine

B: Dude

A: I'll count these as three, so twelve

B: Just stop

A: One on each calf, fourteen

B: Man

A: Don't believe me? Check it. ... Boom and... boom.

B: Pull your pantleg down

A: And then four more, but those are only for Amy to see, heh heh. So eighteen, just like I said

B: That is, all, just really gross and lame.

A: No way. I got twenty if you count my Achilles tendon.

B: You can't count those, they're tendons.

A: I know, but it's definitely bulging. Just like my veins!

C: Heyo! You guys talking veins?!

B: I guess

C: I knew it! How many you up to?

A: Eighteen!

C: Not bad, not bad. Hey, he's not counting his Achilles is he?

B: No

C: Cause you gotta watch this one! You gotta watch him! I'm late, I'll catch up with you dudes later!

A: That guy is so awesome.

at the Kellogg Atrium Cafe, between two apparent Kellogg students discussing the Super Bowl ads February 16, 2010

A: So yeah, good game, bad commercials.

B: Yeah, definitely. I try not to get too excited about Super Bowl commercials and talk big about how "I watch the game just for the commercials!" and everything, but yeah. Pretty bad.

A: I want to make a funny YouTube about that actually.

B: About how bad they were?

A: Well, you saw how a lot of them were actually pretty misogynistic?

B: I wouldn't go that far

A: There were at least two that focused solely around men resenting their female partners. And there were loads that were explicitly sexual, those Go Daddy things were just women removing their tops.

B: They weren't models of feminist discourse or anything, but I don't think

A: They revolved around exploiting and objectifying women! That was the whole point! The fact that Go Daddy is sort of winking about it doesn't make it ok! It just makes them creepy leering winksters, not post-gender hipsters!

B: Jesus

A: Sorry, I got wrapped up. ... Anyways, so a lot of them were misogynistic

B: A lot of them weren't very progressive

A: To put it mildly. But then there was the really cute Google one, with the guy falling in love and marrying a French woman

B: With the sappy music.

A: Right. Anyways, the video would be, it would start with text that said "Hey Google! FTFY!" And then

B: What's FTFY?

A: "Fixed that for you" It's sort of an internet joke

B: HA HA HA! HO HO!

A: It's not... don't be a jerk. Regardless, the video shows the text, then starts showing the Google commercial, it starts out the same, but then it changes! And the stuff it starts showing, after the "Churches in Paris" or whatever, becomes stuff like "Prostitutes in Tampa" and "paternity tests", and then the last one is "How many pigs does it take to eat a whole human corpse?" Get it?

B: Well, it sure sounds disgusting. So the joke is that a man starts out idealistically, descends into disillusionment and sexual deviancy, then murders his wife? Tee-hee! Consider my ribs tickled!

A: No, the joke is that, now, you know, the one sort of positive ad has been modified to fit in with the other ones! The ones that are abusive towards women!

B: That sounds terrible, and not funny.

A: Well, it's hard to explain

B: Also, I think the three circles of Hell correspond pretty nicely to "Endlessly watching a 'funny' YouTube video", to "Endlessly hearing someone describe a 'funny' YouTube video", to "Endlessly hearing someone describe a totally fictional, that they just made up, 'funny' YouTube video."

A: Well. There's nine circles of Hell, so... you look dumb.

B: I am confident we could get rid of six of them.

A: Like?

B: Idolatry. That's probably one of them, right?

A: Probably.

B: Ok, cool. Cause that one definitely doesn't make sense any more.

A: Did it ever?

B: ?

on the Red Line, heading down to Wrigleyville February 15, 2010

A: I'm actually really interested in all that stuff. The whole idea that, you know, the world is definitely one way, I'm a very big believer in Truth, you know, with a capital T, and that history and everything really did happen one way, even if we don't know what that way was or is. But, there are different ways the world could go, you could imagine things happen differently, and things being better or worse because of that. And, so the really interesting part, I think, is what if we can take things from the better worlds into ours?

B: Just magically?

A: No, not magically. These other worlds don't exist in any real sense, you know. But, if one of them did have a philosophy, or an idea, that was better than what we have, the idea or philosophy could make it into our world.

B: How? The other places aren't real.

A: Well, they're not actually real, but they're real as ideas. And so, if all you're trying to do is take an idea from them, that's totally possible. Like, you could imagine a world where something was different, and so they had a different idea, but then it turns out that idea is actually useful, back here in the real world.

B: Like

A: Well, like a silly example, is imagine a cartoon world. Like for kids

B: An actual cartoon?

A: Yeah. So in this cartoon world, which isn't real, like REALLY real, but is real as fiction, the characters have some adventure, say, and they learn a valuable lesson about friendship, or diversity or whatever. So, kids watching it learn that even though some kids may look different than them, all kids have something to offer. Those kids learned a genuine life lesson from a made-up, fictional world.

B: Well, yeah, but that's just because the writers, or artists, or whatever, put those things into the other world. I can't draw a cartoon Einstein, have him talk about relativity, and say, "Oh wow! I just learned about relativity from a fiction! Neat!"

A: You can if you don't tell people you drew it. If you don't tell the people you put the information in, it still matters to them when they pull it out.

B: That's religion, right? A bunch of people made up a fictional world, where miracles happen and everything, and then pretended they didn't make it up. People bought it, I'll never know why

A: Well, I think that's a pretty cynical take.

B: Skeptical take, maybe. Sure.

A: Well...

B: So why do you think this is interesting?

A: Just the idea that truth can come from fiction.

B: I mean. Sure, ok. Of course.

A: I want to write a novel about it.

B: Really?

A: Yeah.

B: I'll give you a title: "I really like Umberto Eco and Jorge Luis Borges, especially Foucault's Pendulum and Tlon, Uqbar, Whatever, so, here's a book I wrote."

A: That's not being fair, I'm genuinely interested

B: Hey, hey. Maybe for a sort of spiritual successor, you could write a book about, like, what if we are all just MACHINES, you know? Haha, yeah, you could call that one "The first Matrix movie was on Spike this weekend. I was going to just watch the first part where the one dude punches through a wall, but I ended up watching the whole thing, and I really think it has some interesting ideas." You might have to cut the title down a little, but

A: You're a jerk, you know that? A total jerk.

between two graduate students discussing Mongolian grills and attire February 12, 2010

A: Oh yeah, what'd you guys do?

B: We just went to Flat Top Grill and then saw Avatar.

A: Nice

B: Yeah, she seemed to be having a big time. We're doing something next weekend, so you know. That's good.

A: Sure. Do you like Flat Top?

B: Yeah, definitely

A: See, I always overdo it. I don't go there very often, and it's expensive when I do go

B: Yeah, it's way expensive.

A: Yeah, right? So I always try and get my money's worth, by piling on tons of sauces and everything, and it just comes out terrible. "Throw some black bean sauce on there with that Thai peanut, and put four ladles of some garlic sauce over the whole bit. Then mix three of every conceivable vegetable in there, about three servings of Seitan, a hardboiled egg."

B: And you gotta get that flatbread.

A: Haha, yeah! It ends up tasting like something thrown in a blender. I mean, it's alright. But it's never as good as if I had gone to decent Thai place or whatever, and just ordered pad thai.

B: That's really funny you mention that, because I sort of did that myself that night, but not with the food, with my clothes!

A: What'd you wear?

B: Well, she's a little hipster, as I think you know

A: Sure.

B: So I started off with some skinny jeans.

A: Absolutely.

B: But it was slushy as all get out that night, so I wore my serious, work snow boots.

A: Like cool ones?

B: Nope. Carharts.

A: Eeeh. Why do you have Carharts? I have NEVER seen you wear them.

B: I almost never do, but it was SO wet and slushy out. I knew they looked ridiculous, but I wasn't going to just soak my sneakers.

A: Right on. So you had some kind of hipster shirt with it?

B: See, that's the thing. Turns out I don't have any. So I went with a blue and yellow striped polo.

A: Hmm. Was it really tight? Or old or anything?

B: Nope, not at all. A little big if anything. And almost brand new!

A: Eeeh.

B: Yeah. It's a nice one and everything, I think I got it at Banana Republic or something. It looks nice with khakis.

A: Sure.

B: So for a coat. It was slushy, but not cold, so I went with a fleece track jacket.

A: You have a fleece track jacket?

B: Big time.

A: Soo...

B: But I thought I might get cold, so I topped it off with a cloak.

A: Oh dude, not the Jedi cloak.

B: Oh yes, the Jedi cloak! You totally can't tell that was a costume originally.

A: Man. You can totally tell, seriously. It looks like a Jedi cloak, straight-up.

B: I... I know.

between two friends discussing sinus cavities, one table over at Peet's Coffee February 11, 2010

A: I told you I've been using a neti pot right?

B: That's the thing that you stick up your nose and pour water around?

A: Yep, that's it.

B: How do you like it?

A: Pretty well. It's not a real great feeling or anything, but a few minutes after you do it, your sinuses are totally clear, which is really neat. And I think it's helped with my allergies, but that could just be psychosomatic.

B: Sure. That's interesting, maybe I'll try one in the fall, that's when I get allergies.

A: Yeah, using it makes me want to make a super one somehow.

B: Like what?

A: Well, it would be a thing you put over your whole face, and it would just flood all your sinus cavities with water

B: That's what a neti pot does right?

A: Well, sort of, but it turns out the water doesn't have to travel very far to get from one nostril to the other. This would use positive pressure, and seriously just flood every inch of your sinus cavities, like right up to your eardrums and everything. You would have water being pumped into your nose, and just rushing out your mouth.

B: That sounds awful, that sounds like your whole head would be a fountain.

A: No way dude, it would clean everything! It would clear out your earwax and everything.

B: I don't think so. Earwax is outside your eardrum and everything, I don't think your sinus cavity connects there.

A: I'm pretty sure it does. Regardless, the machine would run for a while, and then reverse, and just suck all the water out. And then a heater would kick in, and evaporate any moisture left inside your face.

B: But

A: Just think about it! Your sinus cavity would be bone dry! Doesn't that sound just super clean and awesome?

B: No, it sounds like a terrible idea. You need some moisture in there.

A: No, you don't.

B: Yeah, you totally do. That's what mucus membranes and all that stuff are for. I shouldn't be able to blow air up your nose and have it come out your ears, that has to be really bad for you.

A: No, it's seriously not.

B: What are you basing this on? You sound like an eight-year old, "I wish there were no mosquitos! I wish they all disappeared right now!" The kid doesn't know that would totally screw up ecosystems and everything. It's not like mosquitos can all just disappear, and the only effect is "No more skeeter bites, hooray!" You can't just sucks out every drop of moisture from your face and the only outcome is "Hooray, my nose isn't stuffed up anymore! And I also get to satisfy this misplaced obsession with cleanliness that associates moisture with Uncleanness! Because you know, moisture isn't an important part of keeping the body working or anything! It's not there for any useful reason at all!"

A: Dude, it would be fine. Believe me.

B: Based on what?! Why would I believe you, you have no idea what you're talking about!

A: I have a sinus cavity! I get to have an opinion about it! I have a stake in this conversation, so I get an opinion! You can't deny me my opinion!

B: Woah. Where is this coming from?

A: I'm sorry, I got hounded by Mark last night at Nevin's about healthcare reform. It was clear that he had memorized about five facts, which I'm sure were totally wrong or disingenuous or whatever, from Hot Air, and I couldn't counter them, really, and I feel, I feel like I let Obama down, you know? But healthcare affects me! I get to have an opinion!

B: I mean, ok. I understand that. ... You're not really going to try and suck all the moisture out of your face, are you? Because, seriously, that is super unhea

A: I know. I was just talking big.

B: Ok, cool. Because it would totally open you up to all sorts of infections, and

A: I get it!

at Tech Express, between a graduate student and his Love February 09, 2010

A: That's what I told him!

B: Hey, can you do me a favor tonight?

A: You know you're my true love, my sweet. I'd die for you. I'd kill for you. I'd swim the ocean for you. A single word from you and my life is forfeit. You're the reason I go to work in the morning, and the reason I return. You're the reason I sleep, dreaming of you, and the reason I wake. You're the bedrock of my life, and the core of my being; you're my Alpha and Omega, my Beginning and my End.

B: Great. I forgot I had to present at group meeting tonight, and I have to stay here until nine to pull my sample out, so do you mind making the casserole tonight, and bringing me some here at work? It's all made up and everything, just throw it in the oven, 375 for like 45 minutes, and

A: Eeeeeh. See, yeah. I'm kind of supposed to play Borderlands with Tom and Mark tonight.

B: Yeah, I know, you can play while it's cooking, take a break for 20 minutes while you swing by here to drop it off, then get back to it.

A: Well, it's not really "swinging by", right? I mean, I would have to leave the apartment and everything, so

B: Well, sure, but school is only a mile and a half away. It'd be 15 minutes, tops.

A: Yeah. It's hard, though, because, I really have no problem driving back and everything, but we're taking on Mad Moxxi tonight, and she's really tough. Like REALLY tough. I can't leave Tom and Mark to fend for themselves

B: But

A: They'd get stomped! They need me, you know? I can't let them down. Tom even cancelled plans to play tonight.

B: It's 15 minutes

A: Well, yeah, but that's an eternity in Borderlands!

B: Forget it!

A: Do you really want me to drive back?

B: Yes!

A: I mean, like REALLY REALLY want me to? Because I could probably call Tom and Mark, and apologize and cancel and everything, but I know Tom will be mad, so I really don't want to.

B: Forget it.

A: Are you sure? Shew, thanks baby, you're the best, you really

B: What was all that about dying for me? Whatever happened to that? This is dipping a casserole and three miles of driving.

A: Well... you know. I WOULD die for you, if you really needed it. Like, I don't know. A convict was going to shoot one of us or something.

B: That doesn't happen! Life-or-death situations don't happen in the real world. This is the kind of situation that actually happens, that gives you a chance to demonstrate your love.

A: Well, I mean. Maybe. But if a life-or-death situation actually DOES happen, I'll be there. And my thoughtless sacrifice will make up for tonight.

B: And last weekend? When you played Borderlands all Saturday, and I had to buy an expensive crappy lunch at Tech Express?

A: Yeah. That one too.

between two mumblers on the soon-to-be retired 22 February 01, 2010

A: I don't know brother, I don't know what to think.

B: You don't know what to think about what?

A: Any of it, brother, any of it. I don't know what to think about any of it.

between a man and his God January 13, 2010

A: Jesus, quit whining.

Jesus: Hey!

A: Oh, sorry, Jesus. I wasn't speaking to you.

Jesus: I thought you were praying because there was no one else around.

A: Oh yeah, I could see that. No, I was telling myself to quit whining, and invoking your name for emphasis.

Jesus: NOT IN VAIN I HOPE!

A: No, Jesus, not in vain.

Jesus: Oh, I was just kidding, I could care less about the name in vain thing.

A: Cool, that part never made any sense to me.

Jesus: Yeah, me neither. I don't know who put that in, seriously. Well, I better be going, good luck with the whining. I'll see you in a few months!

A: Thanks, Je... Wait! A few months?!

Jesus: Ha! Got you. No, but seriously, I'll see you in exactly 62 years, 7 months, and 4 days. Uhh. Six months. No. Seven months. For sure.

A: Sixty-two more years? Not bad!

Jesus: That's definitely longer than I lasted!

Both: Hahaha!

A: See ya, Jesus!

Jesus: Peace!

between two cousins choosing beverages at a Christmas pitch-in January 05, 2010

A: Hey, you want a soda?

B: Yeah, sure, what do you have diet?

A: Uh... it looks like the diet is all gone, actually, you want a Coke?

B: Ehhh. No thanks, I'll just have water.

A: Whoa. Health nut. Remember what Woody Allen said: "You can live to be 100, but you have to give up everything that would make you want to live to be 100."

B: I hate that. I hate all those kinds of quotes. It's a disgusting view of what makes life worth living. Without high-fructose corn syrup, Woody Allen would kill himself. "God, cigarettes are bad for me? Forget it, shoot me now."

A: Well, I think he's talking about other stuff.

B: Like what?

A: I don't know. Red meat?

B: Red meat is fine for you, if you eat it in reasonable portions and not too often. And if you can live with the unnecessary suffering you're causing by eating other living, thinking things by eating meat. But that's something else entirely.

A: Well, why do you want live to be 100?

B: I don't! Or I don't know if I do. But if I do want to live to be 100, it wouldn't be to consume more trans-fat acids. It'd be to see great-grandchildren, or... I don't know. See where the internet goes, see what happens in technology. Spend more time with my family. Make friends. Normal, wholesome things, not something base like "Eating sweets!" Hurray, candy! I'd slit my own throat before I stopped eating sweets! Mmmm!

A: Alright, don't

B: It's actually consistent with the rest of Woody Allen's life, he's a really sick guy. You know he married his step-daughter, right?

A: Is that what happened?

B: Well, he was with Mia Farrow for like 10 years, and Mia Farrow had an adopted step-daughter named Soon-Yi. And then Farrow found pictures of him naked with her daughter, and kicked him out, and then he and Soon-Yi got married, he was almost 60 and she was 20 or something?

A: Gross.

B: Yeah, he's disgusting. The idea that only low-level, physical pleasures are the only thing that make life worth living squres nicely with the kind of perverted individual that would sleep with his girlfriend's daughter.

between two twenty-somethings discussing climate change on the 77, headed east December 18, 2009

A: Now, I don't really know much about climate change, but it seems like

B: Then don't talk about it.

A: What?

B: Don't talk about if you don't know anything.

A: No, no, I think we'll agree.

B: I'm sure we'll both have a vaguely left-leaning take on it, but seriously, if you don't know anything, there's nothing to talk about. I don't know anything, either, let's not have two ignorant dopes discussing climate change. Let's spare the world that conversation.

A: It'll be short, I promise.

B: Gah. Fine, go. Be quick.

A: Ok, well it seems like all the Republicans and everybody is on board with the fact that climate change is happening, but the kind of sticking point is whether or not we're causing it, right?

B: Sure.

A: Or, at least, that's the FIG LEAF they're using. But, it seems to me, that that doesn't really matter, you know? Like, we should try and stop it REGARDLESS.

B: Fine.

A: Like, if an earthquake was going to sink California, and it was just a normal, natural occurrence, and Democrats wanted to stop it, the Republicans wouldn't say, "It's not a manmade earthquake, let's just leave it" would they?

B: I can't imagine it's that simple. But ok.

A: Or maybe they WOULD, because then they would finally be free of Hollywood and San Francisco! Ha ha ha.

B: Are we done here?

A: Well, there's one more.

B: Oh my

A: The other thing Republicans always say is that it's too expensive, you know what I mean?

B: Ok.

A: But, to my mind at least, and like I said, I don't know too much about it

B: Just get to it.

A: Well, it seems like that money is going to be spent anyway, you know? I mean, we'll have to invest a lot of money in green technology to combat global warming, but we're investing a lot of money now in non-green technology. Let's just move that over.

B: Fine.

A: It's not like we're trying to fight global warming by burning money or shooting gold into the sun. I think you'll find

B: Not me, I have no stake in this at all.

A: Well, then I think THEY'LL find, that if you factor in the amount of money saved in traditional, non-green investments, then moving everything over to green technology will cost exactly ZERO DOLLARS. It has to! It's a zero-sum game!

B: That can't be right.

A: Well, what's wrong with it?

B: I don't care!

at Old Orchard, between a mall Santa and a graduate student December 17, 2009

Santa: Ho, ho, ho, and what do you want for Christmas?

A: I'll tell you, Santa. I want an ominous creaking to occur simultaneously at ever Post Office in the land. I want the creaking to get louder, and for the whole building to begin to shudder. I want cracks to appear in the walls, and small bits of plaster to fall from the ceiling. I want everyone to escape from the buildings, while signage shakes and falls. And then I want the ground to open up into a huge hole, and each Post Office from sea to shining sea falls into the Earth, never to be seen again. And then I want Jesus to appear, and I want Him to say, "You're all welcome, folks, you'll never have to deal with the Post Office again" and then vanish.

Santa: Ho, ho, ho, that is a very specific wish!

A: I had a lot of time to think about it, Santa.

Santa: Ho, ho, ho, and why's that?

A: I was stuck in a long line at the Post Office, Santa! Was that not clear? I thought it was really obvious that I was venting about my recent Post Office experience. Huh. I'm really surprised that that didn't come through.

between two young professors discussing email etiquette in the lobby of Tech December 15, 2009

A: I wish there was a way to convey sentiment in a piece of email.

B: Well, there is, right? By the words you use.

A: Yeah, and that definitely works sometimes. But I wish there were a way to convey humor.

B: Without a smiley face or LOL?

A: Yeah, totally. That makes you look like a 12 year old. Sometimes I put "haha" at the end of a sentence I want to be light-hearted, but I am afraid it comes off as sardonic.

B: Really? Sardonic?

A: Yeah.

B: Well, I think the general advice for writers is to convey the sentiment of their characters within the words themselves. You're not supposed to say, "'How interesting', Mary replied drolly." You should just say "'How interesting', Mary said" and the character should understand the tone because of how you setup Mary's character. They would understand that she's being sarcastic or dry or whatever.

A: Well, yeah, if you're writing a book, sure. I had to write like a four sentence long email today, and I wanted to convey some warmth, punch it up a little. But there's no room to establish context, and the guy doesn't know me well enough to know how to take jokes or anything. So I just stuck "haha" at the end.

B: It's the same with exclamation points. You're not supposed to use them, but I wrote an email today to a woman at UC Berkley, and it made sense to throw in something like, "I hope you're staying warmer than we are up here in Chicago!" And it's not like it's exciting enough, at all, to use an exclamation mark. But if you use a period

A: You sound cold!

B: Yeah, totally. "I hope you're staying warm. Well, enough with the pleasantries, are we having dinner at 6:30 or 7:00?"

A: I think some people get excited about this. How email is a new form of communication, we're still definining it, etc.

B: Yeah, I just get kind of annoyed with it.

A: For real.

B: Someone should design professional looking smilies.

A: Instead of the yellow faces?

B: Yeah, they would be a man or woman in biz-caj, and they would convey more professional sentiments.

A: I don't think that would catch on.

B: Unclear!

during a quasi-theological debate between two twenty-somethings December 14, 2009

A: That's the thing that drives me crazy about people that think Jesus would be against gay marriage. It seems clear to me that the whole thing about Jesus wasn't the specific views he articulated, but the fact that those views were way more sensical and loving than the ones currently going around. The takeaway shouldn't be "Jesus enumerated these nine things we should or should not do", it should be "Always err on the side of taking care of people" or "If a law doesn't make any sense, and actively harms people, then don't follow it."

B: So you think Jesus had a first-order philosophy?

A: What do you mean?

B: Well, if he just had nine things or whatever that he wanted to get across, he would have a zeroth-order philosophy. But, you're saying his philosophy is actually related to the common wisdom of the time, so it's first-order.

A: And if his views were based on how quickly the prevailing views were changing, it'd be second-order?

B: Yeah, I guess. The problem with this, of course, is that you can't just define Jesus to be 20% more liberal than the rest of the population. Well, you can, but it starts to get weird at the edges.

A: Well, look. I think Jesus' actual views really are zeroth-order. I'm sure He actually had some set of things that He thought were Right--and Right with a capital R here, because He's Jesus after all--and some things he thought were Wrong. But, he's a smart guy. He knows you can't just bust in there and throw stuff out without paying attention to the conditions on the ground; "Hey, I'm Jesus, you guys won't know about stem cells for another two millenia, but trust Me: I'm cool with it"

B: Well, He could if He put on a big show. He could've carved "Stem Cell Therapy Is A Good Idea, Take Them From Wherever You Can Get Them, Trust Me, It's Fine" on the Moon. That would've conveyed his point nicely.

A: Well, yeah. But we're just taking it as Writ--again, with a capital W there--that He wouldn't do something obvious like that.

B: Too easy.

A: Well, for whatever reason.

B: So you're proposing that Jesus has some views, but that he kept to himself. He couldn't tell them, because they were so far out from what everyone else thought at the time, He would've been kicked out. Again, we're assuming no convincing miracles, Just Because. So, instead Jesus does a sort of linear interpolation. He wants everyone to have a tolerance of 1.0, say, most people at the time only had of 0.0, so Jesus throws out a .20.

A: Exactly.

B: Gets them moving in the right direction. But

A: But the problem is that people start to assume that Jesus actually just wanted a .20! And not that he was actually compromising.

B: And so you think

A: I propose that we actually try and project out and arrive at Jesus' real views, and then start headed there. So if we could try the line out farther, we could see that Jesus was actually aiming tolerance at 1.0, and then set that up as the goal.

B: But we don't have the t-axis for any of this. We can draw the line out, but we can't tell if Jesus was aiming for 1.0 or 10.0, just that he was going for somewhere on that line.

A: Exactly! And that's where Kabbalah comes in.

B: Is that what Kabbalah is about?

A: I have no idea, honestly. I just finished Foucault's Pendulum, though, and I'm trying to work Kabbalahism in wherever I can.

B: Sure. Maybe that's what the Rosicrucians were after!

A: Haha, maybe. You read it too?

B: Yeah, a long time ago, I don't really remember much of it.

A: Yeah. I finished it last night and I don't remember big chunks, haha.

B: Sure. Good though.

A: Oh yeah, definitely.

between two graduate students, at The North Face store in downtown Evanston December 10, 2009

A: Well, I mean, I do some things. It's not like I order her food or throw my coat in a puddle or anything, but I usually hold the door, or if there's one bag to carry between the two of us, I'll offer to carry it. Or like, last week we drove out for dinner with my parents, and it was pouring out, so I dropped her off at the restaurant door while I looked for a place to park.

B: But, see, that's just it man. All that stuff is sexist and bad.

A: It's not sexist. She can all obviously do those things herself, I mean, she lived alone for a few years. It's not like she's going to get the vapors or anything. But, I don't know. I like making life a little more pleasant for her, you know? There's like big things I do, you know, support her, take care of the apartment, that kind of stuff. But I like that there's little things, too. And she does stuff like that, too, you know, she always makes us both tea, and she's really good about keeping things tidy, and buying paper towels and all that sort of normal stuff. It makes it better for both of us.

B: You don't that think you're denying each other's humanity there? That you're negating something basic by not letting she or yourself experience those kinds of things?

A: Are you claiming that walking through a P.F. Chang's parking lot in the pouring rain is an essential part of the human experience? Cause it's not. Like, at all.

between two men, walking down the sidewalk south on Sheridan December 09, 2009

A: I'm giving up videogames until the end of the year.

B: Really? Why?

A: Well, you know how I've been kind of grumpy a lot lately?

B: Haha, yeah, I noticed. Do you think it's videogame-related?

A: No, not at all. But I have no idea what's causing it.

B: So...

A: So I figured I should just intentionally do something that will make me grumpy, then I'll have an explanation.

B: What?

A: Well, like a week from now, I'll be grumpy and think, "Yeah, you've been working so much that you haven't had time to play videogames" and then I'll feel better about being in a bad mood.

B: But, you'll also remember that you're causing your irritation intentionally, right?

A: SHH! I'M TRYING TO REPRESS THAT THOUGHT AND YOU'RE NOT HELPING!

between a philosopher and his Stone December 08, 2009

Philosopher: Life is too short.

Stone: For what?

Philosopher: Hmm?

Stone: What is life too short for?

Philosopher: Oh, I meant just in general.

between two computer science graduate students on the bus December 07, 2009

A: You know how Google did that flu prediction thing?

B: Where they predicted flu outbreaks by tracking geographically people searching for flu symptoms?

A: Right, so if a bunch of people in a town started searching for "runny nose" or "fever" or whatever, Google would predict a flu outbreak there.

B: Well, it's not really a prediction, people already have the flu. It's just that Google can recognize it before doctors can, because people will Google stuff before they get themselves to a doctor.

A: Well, whatever

B: It's not whatever, it's an important point.

A: Well anyway, I had an idea the other day: could you do a similar thing with the first snow of winter?

B: What would that be?

A: Well, you know. You would look for people saying things like, "Wow, snow!" or "First snow of the winter!" or whatever, there's probably like 40 of those phrases. And then if you saw a disproportionate amount of those, you would predict that it was snowing for the first time in that area.

B: But you already know it's snowing there, just look outside. The interesting thing about the flu detection--not prediction, but detection--is that flu outbreaks are hard to detect, you can just look out the window and see it raining down.

A: Well it wouldn't work for just the FIRST snow, you could predict when it was snowing at all.

B: What would people be searching for everytime it snowed?

A: Like... "Why is it snowing?" I'm sure there are others.

between my ears December 07, 2009

A: Did you hear Nate is launching a new blog this Friday named Overread?

B: Yeah, I did! I'm really psyched.

A: I'd say! There's a lot of positive buzz around it!

B: It'll be at http://overread.ftaires.com right?

A: Of course! Do you think it will be updated as regularly as Overheard?

B: Probably not, but we can dream!

between two twenty-somethings in the Argo Tea downtown December 04, 2009

A: I did my first chin-up today!

B: Nice man, good for you.

A: Yeah, thanks. If you graph the age at which someone does their first chin-up, I'm sure being 28 puts me in like the 99% percentile, haha.

B: Yeah, I'm sure. You're 28?

A: Wait. No, haha, I'm 27.

B: Ok, I didn't think you were that much older.

A: Whoops! But yeah, I'm actually a little proud of myself, I. Wait. No, I'm 26.

B: ... Do you really not know how old you are?

A: No way, man. Why bother? I've already got my birthdate memorized, I can just calculate my age on the fly.

B: Except you can't.

A: Well, I got to it, it just took a bit. It was easier before the Millenium, I used to be able to just drop both one-nines and do 99-83 or whatever. Now I have to drop the two-zero, then add one hundred, then drop the one-nine, and subtract that. So it takes me a little bit sometime. But still, you gotta admit. It's convenient.

B: I think the next time you don't know your age and someone calls you on it, just say you have a concussion.

between two grad students at the Friday Coffee & Bagel event December 03, 2009

A: Hey man, did you get our paper submitted?

B: Yeah, sorry I forgot to email when it was done.

A: No problem, I figured you would let me know if there were a problem. What time did you finally end up submitting it?

B: 11:50 baby. Ten minutes to spare!

A: Haha, nice.

B: Yep. Right before I submitted it, I did a quick Find & Replace to convert all the "use"s to "utilize"s and all the "front"s to "forefront"s, I thought it punched it up a little.

A: Sure, good thinking.

B: Yeah, I double checked it, it was still eight pages so I think we are in

A: Noooooooo!

B: What?!

A: Did you remember that Dr. Clause de Frontly was on the paper too?!

B: Noooooooo! Well, at least it was case-sensitive!

Frontly: STUDENTS! My name is not Clautilize de forefrontly!

B: I guess not!

between two graduate students one office down December 03, 2009

A: So, all day I've been researching the stimulus package, and recovery.gov and all of that.

B: Sure.

A: And I've come to the conclusion that democracy and the internet are inherently incompatible.

B: How so?

A: Well, at its core, democracy requires some minimum amount of coherent conversation and debate. There doesn't have to be a lot of it, and there can be a lot of noise, but there is some lower threshold. And that threshold right now isn't being cleared. It turns out, and this was never an issue before, but it turns out that there needs to be at least the possibility of physical harm to keep people reasonably on track and sensible. Deep down, you have to know that if you say something too stupid, or too mean, or too dishonest, there is at least SOME chance that someone will walk up and kick you in the crotch. Not metaphorically, but literally, someone can actually come up and just punch you in the back of the head if you are being too stupid. And we never realized this was a constraint that people needed before, because it was just always there.

B: But take it away...

A: Exactly. The internet takes it away, it makes you completely disembodied, and you know at a gut level that you can say whatever you want, and nothing bad will happen to you. Nothing. There is not a small chance of some negative consequence, there is an exactly zero chance. So there's no incentive to not go completely off the rails, discussion and debate go away, and democracy dies.

B: Thank you, Reader Comments section.

at Bat 17 December 02, 2009

A: Geez!!!

B: You said "one bite"! That was one bite! You heard her, she said "one bite"!

C: Yeah. I think it was assumed to be the size of a bite that a normal human might make. Not a horse, or an enormous... bear.

between two dudes waiting on the Intercampus bus December 02, 2009

A: You want to hear a joke I wrote?

B: No. Nobody writes jokes.

A: This is my first! Here it goes: What's the difference between how Republicans and Democrats relate to homosexuals?

B: There's a million differences. This is why I hate jokes, they

A: Nope! Republicans accuse people they don't like of being homosexuals, while Democrats accuse people they don't like of being CLOSETED homosexuals!

B: See. This is another reason why I hate jokes, that's a huge over-simplification.

A: Well, yeah. But not any more than in other jokes.

B: Ok. Are we done?

A: Nope! I wrote a riddle, too!

B: Brilliant.

A: Ok, so imagine you go to the gym every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 2 p.m. And you always see this other guy there, so there's two possibilities, right? Either he ALSO goes every week at the same time on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, or he actually goes EVERY DAY, at 2 p.m., and you only see him on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

B: Or he goes every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Or he goes every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Or he flips a coin every day at 2 p.m. to see whether he should go or not, and so far, it has come up heads at least every Monday, Wednesday, or Friday. Or

A: Well, ignore those other possibilities for now. I'll work on the language to constrain it more. Regardless, you are trying to figure out whether he goes EVERY day, or only on the days you go.

B: I don't care how often he goes.

A: Just assume you do. Are riddles supposed to motivate the problem, too?

B: I think riddles primarily appeal to people who don't respond to the types of problems that motivate most people.

A: Well, assume you want to know. But. BUT! You also know that he is very vain, and will tell you that he goes to the gym everyday, regardless of whether it's true or not! SO. How do you find out how often he goes to the gym?

B: I don't know, go on a Tuesday and see if he's there?

A: Sorry, I forgot to mention, you aren't allowed to do anything besides talk to him. So you have to talk with him, or ask him something, to figure out how often he goes.

B: What a bizarre constraint.

A: Do you give up?

B: Yes.

A: You ask him often HE thinks that YOU go to the gym! If he says, "Monday, Wednesday, Friday", then it's clear that he goes every day, and sees negative examples of you visiting the gym! If he says he doesn't know, then he has only seen positive examples but recognizes his own imperfect sampling, and therefore only goes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday!

B: Yeah, or he just doesn't pay attention to whether you're there or not. He's not a weirdo like you. He's not a creep that stalks people at the gym and writes busted riddles about them.

A: That's

B: Or, you know. He could still go every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and doesn't know what you do on Tuesdays.

A: We already decided that the only two options are Monday, Wednesday, Friday or every weekday! Take that as writ!

B: Wait, did the 2 p.m. part factor into the riddle at all?

A: Nope! Looks like you got bit by a big old RED HERRING! Fooled ya!

on a bus, between two high schoolers discussing Twitter December 01, 2009

A: So, what's the difference between the hash-sign and the at-sign again?

B: Well, the at-sign is for people, so you might tweet something like "@NienNunb and I are in band practice" if we were at band practice. And the hash-sign is more for kind of concepts, like how you might Tag a blog post. So you could do "@NienNunb and I are in band practice #nerfarrow". Someone could then click on or search for #nerfarrow, and get all the tweets about Nerf Arrow. Like concerts, or practice, album releases, whatever.

A: Ah, ok. What about if someone is both a person, AND a concept?

B: Like...

A: What if the person is Batman? He's both an idea, and the living embodiment of that idea. Would you use them both then?

B: Absolutely. In that case, the order actually becomes important. You would put the hash-sign first if you were referring to him more as a Platonic ideal of Revenge, Justice, and Heroism, or put the at-sign first if you were referring to him in the context of Revenge, Justice, and Heroism made flesh.

between two twenty-something women on the Red Line December 01, 2009

A: You know that kind of flirty thing we do where we bite our lower lip and look vulnerable?

B: Sure. It drives Matt crazy when I do that, haha.

A: Yeah, I remember you telling me that! So I've been trying to do it, and I'm ashamed to admit, practicing it in the mirror.

B: Haha, amateur.

A: I know! And here's the thing! I couldn't get it to work, like at all.

B: What is there not to work?

A: That's what I said! It was driving me crazy, but I was too embarrassed to ask someone what I was doing wrong.

B: Sure.

A: So, Saturday, we all go to Sheffield's, and there's this really cute bartender, right? And I kept trying to get his attention, and Susan and everybody were ready to go, so I just said: Screw it. And I looked him right in the eyes, and tried the lip-biting thing!

B: And?

A: It totally worked! He asked for my number right then, Boom.

B: Nice! What was the difference?

A: That's the question, right? So I go home, thinking I must have it mastered, right? So I pop in an It's Always Sunny, and I'm finish brushing my teeth, and I try it again in the mirror.

B: Victory lap, sure.

A: But it doesn't work, again! Total failure.

B: Maybe you just can't flirt with yourself, haha.

A: No, it was really clear that THAT was not the flirt that got the bartender. So I go to bed, despondent, thinking it's gone for good.

B: Do you have to be drinking to pull it off?

A: Nope, but that's not a bad guess. But I did finally figure it out! I'm trying to sleep, tossing and turning, trying to figure out the difference, and suddenly it hits me! It's not just biting your lip, you also have to look down and to the side demurely! You can't watch yourself do it!

B: The very act of watching yourself perform the expression nullifies it!

A: Exactly! It's a Heisenburg Flirtation!

during a lunchbreak in the hallways of Tech November 30, 2009

A: My heart's a hand grenade, you know?

B: Mine's a proximity mine. So... a little bit different there.

A: Your heart will explode only if someone gets too close, but mine is guaranteed to go off at some point in the future.

B: Is your pin even pulled?

A: Yeah

B: Well, you didn't say so.

A: It's assumed. What would the metaphor be? How could a heart be like a hand grenade with the pin still in? What would that mean?

B: You were the one who said it. Also, just to be clear, proximity mines explode way bigger than hand grenades. So, I would say you were getting off easy, just having a hand grenade for a heart.

A: Proxies aren't even real! They only exist in videogames! They're just landmines adapted to work better in a videogame context.

B: Wait, really?

A: Yeah, I think so. I assume Goldeneye had landmines originally, but they were too difficult to use, or they couldn't get the bounce-off-the-walls physics to work correctly, or something, so they just invented "proximity mines."

B: Huh. I always assumed they were real. My "heart is a proximity mine" metaphor works even better now.

between three white guys waiting at Howard for a bus November 25, 2009

A: Did I tell you Paul got engaged?

B: No, you didn't, good for him! Her name's Jennifer right?

A: Yeah, yeah. He met her on Match.com, believe it or not.

B: Haha, right on. I didn't know that.

A: Yeah, he's all fired up about it, called me the night he proposed and everything.

B: Aww. Yeah, he was all about her when I talked to him last Christmas.

A: Yeah, definitely. Do you think we'll ever get to the point where we don't make note of when people get together through an online dating site?

B: I assume so. I mean, way back, I assume it was mentioned whenever people didn't get married through an arranged marriage or something.

A: Way way back.

B: Well, you know

C: We're all thinking it! Will we ever get to the point where we don't mention anything when it's a mixed race marriage?

B: Uh... I think we're at that point now. I mean, us non-racists at least.

C: Not in a bad way or anything!

B: How is it not in a bad way?

C: You mean you wouldn't have mentioned anything if Jennifer was black?

A: Well... I mean, I probably would've, but that's just because Paul is total white-bread. Not in a bad way, of course.

C: Exactly.

B: So you wouldn't have said anything if John got engaged to a black woman?

A: No? He's black, though.

C: Exactly! And you might not have mentioned the Match.com if Paul were older! Because then it would be less interesting or surprising!

B: So, you're saying that when you announce a friend's engagement, you focus on the details that are unusual

C: Only on the details that are unusual or surprising RELATIVE TO THE FRIEND BEING DISCUSSED. So you would always mention her height when a friend marries an 8 foot tall woman, but only because that's unusual relative to everyone! But you WOULDN'T always mention when a fiance was in the Army or something, unless your friend is a noted pacifist!

A: Guys, guys. It goes deeper. The only reason I mentioned Paul's engagement at all is because THE EVENT ITSELF IS UNUSUAL OR UNEXPECTED RELATIVE TO WHAT YOU WOULD EXPECT! If I were a wedding planner, though, I wouldn't mention when a client got engaged, because it wouldn't be surprising! Noting things that are unexpected relative to the local norm doesn't just govern what's mentioned when a friend gets married, it governs all conversation!

B: A general theory of conversational topics!

C: !

B: !

A: !

in a snatch of a cellphone conversation, walking past Potbelly's November 24, 2009

A: "Don't let yourself be tempted by the notion that we live in a directed universe."

between two teenagers discussing a mutual acquaintance at the Near North Eatery November 24, 2009

A: I don't man, he kind of drives me crazy.

B: Really? Why?

A: He talks like non-stop, all the time.

B: Well, you don't know him well.

A: I guess. I feel kinda bad about it, with that fake eye and all.

B: Yeah, well, you know that's why he talks so much right?

A: ?

B: He's really self-conscious about the eye, and if there's any break in the conversation, he's afraid that someone will bring it up. So he just makes sure there aren't any breaks. That's why he spends so much time on Xbox, too, no-one on there knows about the eye.

A: Aw

B: Yeah, once he knows you well enough and is confident you won't bring it up, he stops talking so much. He's really funny and a cool guy once he gets over the embarrassment.

A: That's too bad.

B: Yeah, it is.

between two hipsters at Unicorn Cafe November 24, 2009

A: We made a Russian stew last night. Potatoes, carrots, turnips, beets, cabbage, the whole deal.

B: How was it?

A: Considering all of the ingredients have been selected solely on their ability to grow underground the nightmarish Russian hellscape, not too bad.

between a couple of students at the Starbucks in Norris University Center November 23, 2009

A: Did you hear about that guy on trial in Cleveland?

B: No?

A: Yeah, it's really crazy. Dude goes into a liquor store with his girlfriend kind of late on a Friday. They're shopping or whatever, and some other guy comes in and starts holding up the cashier, yelling and waving around a shotgun and everything.

B: Sure.

A: So this dude, the dude with the girlfriend, basically sneaks up behind the guy, and like flying tackles him, they start rolling around on the floor and wrestling with the gun and everything. And I guess the first dude, not the robber, but the first dude, he's a big guy, played football or whatever, and so he eventually wrestles the gun away, and stands up. So he's standing up with the gun, bad guys on the floor, and there's a pause, they're both just there for a split second, then the guy points the gun at the bad guy, and just totally blows him away. Blood and brains everywhere, the whole deal.

B: Christ.

A: Yeah. And then he kind of sets the gun down really gently and waits for the cops to show up.

B: So it was like an adrenalin deal?

A: Well, that's the whole thing. Dude's on trial now for manslaughter.

B: I could see that.

A: Yeah, but here's the kicker. And this was actually like a big part of the evidence: right before he goes after the robber, he's kind of hiding with his girlfriend in an aisle at the store, all crouched down, and she sees his eyes get big, and he looks right at her, right in the eyes and he's all excited and everything, and he whispers, "This is my chance." And then he gets up, tackles the dude, and everything else happens.

B: "This is my chance"? What does that even mean?

A: Nobody knows! The prosecutor says that he wanted to kill somebody, anybody. And he saw a chance open up where he could get away with it. But HE says that he always wanted to be a hero, saw a chance to save his girl and everything.

B: Wow. Did they find him guilty?

A: Nobody knows yet. Jury's still out.

between two twenty-somethings on the North Pacific Metra line, headed south to Ogilvie to do a little early Christmas shopping on State Street. November 20, 2009

A: Well, I was in LA all last weekend

B: Oh that's right! You spent all weekend with Ben and Jennie, right?

A: Ben and Jeanie

B: That's right.

A: But yeah, I sure did. And let me tell you: it was the worst!

B: I knew it! Haha, I totally saw that coming. Is he still a total jerk to her the whole time?

A: Absolutely! I mean, I like the guy and everything

B: Sure

A: But, mama mia. He treats her REALLY badly.

B: She's so nice too!

A: She is! She's really sweet and nice! So, here's the canonical story, right? It was Sunday morning, things had been ok, they had a spare bedroom for me and everything so that was good. But they got into some kind of argument or something in the morning

B: About what? Did he get waaaaay too drunk Saturday night?

A: Haha, yeah, definitely. Dude was OOC, seriously. But I don't think that's what the argument was, I was in the shower for it, thank the Lord. So I come out of the shower, and he's acting cockier than normal, and her eyes were kind of red, you could tell she had been crying.

B: Why does she stay with him?

A: I have no idea! I really don't! She's super great, has a real job and everything. Anyways, after she makes us breakfast

B: Naturally.

A: Yeah, of course. So he keeps pressing for the three of us to go play raquetball.

B: Do they play a lot?

A: I guess? That part was never clear. But anyways, she goes along, and the three of us go to the gym and change and all, and there's this kind of hot girl walking around, and Ben WOULD NOT stop looking at her.

B: Was she like SUPER hot?

A: No, no, nothing like that. She was hot, but nothing ridiculous. She was probably the best looking person there, but you know. If you have a hundred people at the gym, odds are that a few of them will be pretty hot.

B: Sure.

A: But so yeah, he is like looking at her CONSTANTLY, like straining his neck walking to the racquetball courts and everything.

B: Nice. Subtle.

A: Yeah, it's like, you know. All the guys were kind of checking her out or whatever, but it was ridiculous. He literally missed a shot because he was looking out of that tiny little window in the door of the court.

B: Lord.

A: Yeah! And you can see Jeanie, the poor girl, getting more and more upset about it. It was out of hand, seriously. But so finally, she goes, "Ben, stop looking at her. You're embarassing me."

B: Awww.

A: Yeah! It was so awkward, I felt like a jerk by proxy.

B: Haha, yeah, I bet.

A: But so Ben gets all defensive, and he's like, "I like to keep my eyes open and they have to be looking at something! I can't just point them in a direction and not see what's there, that's how EYES WORK!"

B: Oh man.

A: Yeah! And then he was all like, "I gotta look at something, what do you want me to look at? The wall? Do you want me to look at the wall? Of course not! If I have to look at something, I am going to look at a beautiful woman!"

B: Classy. "Beautiful woman."

A: Yeah, he acts like he's some kind of connoisseur or something.

B: Oh yeah, he has the impersonal eye of an art dealer.

A: Haha, yeah, right? Remember Marge in undergrad?

B: Ha! Not his finest hour. So what happened?

A: Well, Jeannie just got real quiet, and Ben starts acting like he won some big argument, like his argument was just really persuasive and she was actually convinced or something. And he kept bringing it up!

B: Oh no!

A: Oh yes! The rest of the afternoon, he would close his eyes and fake walk into walls and be like, "I gotta keep my eyes closed because Jeannie wants me to! That's love, huh? Keeping your eyes closed because your girlfriend wants you to!" And she drove, right

B: He's still under that DUI?

A: Of course! So the whole way back, he kept pointing things out to her, "Hey honey, hey honey, there's a red light coming up, you'll want to brake. Good things I HAVE MY EYES OPEN SO I CAN SEE!"

B: That's terrible!

A: Yeah, it totally was, she just kept looking sadder and sadder. I don't know why she didn't kick him out months ago.

B: He lives at her place?

A: Oh yeah, big time.

B: Why did you go out there at all? It sounds awful.

A: He invited me! I didn't know he was still like that really.

B: That's great that he thought it was a genuine argument.

A: Yeah, like that's the kind of thing you can actually win. When your girlfriend catches you, you look sheepish and knock it off. You don't launch into a battle of wits.

B: Yeah, for real. Cause nothing resembles a game of chess more than hurt feelings in a long-term relationship! Two adversaries, in the battlefield of the mind!

A: Yeah. I really don't know if he's learned that yet.

between two twenty-somethings on the North Pacific Metra line, headed south to Ogilvie to do a little early Christmas shopping on State Street. November 20, 2009

A: Well, I was in LA all last weekend

B: Oh that's right! You spent all weekend with Ben and Jennie, right?

A: Ben and Jeanie

B: That's right.

A: But yeah, I sure did. And let me tell you: it was the worst!

B: I knew it! Haha, I totally saw that coming. Is he still a total jerk to her the whole time?

A: Absolutely! I mean, I like the guy and everything

B: Sure

A: But, mama mia. He treats her REALLY badly.

B: She's so nice too!

A: She is! She's really sweet and nice! So, here's the canonical story, right? It was Sunday morning, things had been ok, they had a spare bedroom for me and everything so that was good. But they got into some kind of argument or something in the morning

B: About what? Did he get waaaaay too drunk Saturday night?

A: Haha, yeah, definitely. Dude was OOC, seriously. But I don't think that's what the argument was, I was in the shower for it, thank the Lord. So I come out of the shower, and he's acting cockier than normal, and her eyes were kind of red, you could tell she had been crying.

B: Why does she stay with him?

A: I have no idea! I really don't! She's super great, has a real job and everything. Anyways, after she makes us breakfast

B: Naturally.

A: Yeah, of course. So he keeps pressing for the three of us to go play raquetball.

B: Do they play a lot?

A: I guess? That part was never clear. But anyways, she goes along, and the three of us go to the gym and change and all, and there's this kind of hot girl walking around, and Ben WOULD NOT stop looking at her.

B: Was she like SUPER hot?

A: No, no, nothing like that. She was hot, but nothing ridiculous. She was probably the best looking person there, but you know. If you have a hundred people at the gym, odds are that a few of them will be pretty hot.

B: Sure.

A: But so yeah, he is like looking at her CONSTANTLY, like straining his neck walking to the racquetball courts and everything.

B: Nice. Subtle.

A: Yeah, it's like, you know. All the guys were kind of checking her out or whatever, but it was ridiculous. He literally missed a shot because he was looking out of that tiny little window in the door of the court.

B: Lord.

A: Yeah! And you can see Jeanie, the poor girl, getting more and more upset about it. It was out of hand, seriously. But so finally, she goes, "Ben, stop looking at her. You're embarassing me."

B: Awww.

A: Yeah! It was so awkward, I felt like a jerk by proxy.

B: Haha, yeah, I bet.

A: But so Ben gets all defensive, and he's like, "I like to keep my eyes open and they have to be looking at something! I can't just point them in a direction and not see what's there, that's how EYES WORK!"

B: Oh man.

A: Yeah! And then he was all like, "I gotta look at something, what do you want me to look at? The wall? Do you want me to look at the wall? Of course not! If I have to look at something, I am going to look at a beautiful woman!"

B: Classy. "Beautiful woman."

A: Yeah, he acts like he's some kind of connoisseur or something.

B: Oh yeah, he has the impersonal eye of an art dealer.

A: Haha, yeah, right? Remember Marge in undergrad?

B: Ha! Not his finest hour. So what happened?

A: Well, Jeannie just got real quiet, and Ben starts acting like he won some big argument, like his argument was just really persuasive and she was actually convinced or something. And he kept bringing it up!

B: Oh no!

A: Oh yes! The rest of the afternoon, he would close his eyes and fake walk into walls and be like, "I gotta keep my eyes closed because Jeannie wants me to! That's love, huh? Keeping your eyes closed because your girlfriend wants you to!" And she drove, right

B: He's still under that DUI?

A: Of course! So the whole way back, he kept pointing things out to her, "Hey honey, hey honey, there's a red light coming up, you'll want to brake. Good things I HAVE MY EYES OPEN SO I CAN SEE!"

B: That's terrible!

A: Yeah, it totally was, she just kept looking sadder and sadder. I don't know why she didn't kick him out months ago.

B: He lives at her place?

A: Oh yeah, big time.

B: Why did you go out there at all? It sounds awful.

A: He invited me! I didn't know he was still like that really.

B: That's great that he thought it was a genuine argument.

A: Yeah, like that's the kind of thing you can actually win. When your girlfriend catches you, you look sheepish and knock it off. You don't launch into a battle of wits.

B: Yeah, for real. Cause nothing resembles a game of chess more than hurt feelings in a long-term relationship! Two adversaries, in the battlefield of the mind!

A: Yeah. I really don't know if he's learned that yet.

between two graduate students, in line at Tech Express November 19, 2009

A: You writing something?

B: Yeah, I've been working on my teaching statement all morning. How'd you know?

A: Your nails are all bitten down to the quick. Is that one bleeding?

B: Yeah, it tore. Kind of nasty, huh?

A: Yep.

at the tail-end of a grad-student party celebrating the successful thesis defense of an acquaintance November 19, 2009

Jack: I know, that's what I was telling him!

Sara: Hey, you about ready to go honey?

Jack: No, no, we got to stay longer, I think

Sara: Jack, I'm tired. I had fun too, but it's late, I want to go to bed.

Jack: No, no, we still got to... wait. "Go to bed"?

Sara: Yeah.

Jack: Like, "go to bed" go to bed?

Sara: Haha, yeah. That kind of "go to bed."

Jack: Welp, I'm out! I'll see you guys later!

Sara: Night guys.

A: Night team, nice seeing you again Sara. Have a good night.

Jack: Oh, we will!

Narrator: <Thirty minutes pass>

A: Jack! You're back!

Jack: Yeah! Turns out that I totally misjudged that! Apparently "'go to bed' go to bed" means literally "Get into bed and go to sleep."

A: Hahah, yeah, we were all wondering.

Jack: It was kind of confusing, right? It wasn't just me.

B: Yeah, definitely dude.

A: I can see how it could go either way, but you seemed so confident that we all assumed you knew what was going on.

Jack: Nope! Haha, who wants a shot?

A: Yeah, I think we're all heading home dude.

Jack: Noo! One more!

B: Sorry man.

Jack: It looks like I really am "Out of the frying pan and into the fire!"

A: ... Are you?

from a Chicago businessman explaining his news-reading strategy to a coworker, at a Jimmy John's downtown November 18, 2009

A: Oh, I read all my news on my iPhone now. Not just normal news either, RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook everything.

B: Yeah, see, I was all fired up about that when I got my first one. But there are all these niggles that popped up, like when you follow a link in the Facebook app, it exits out to launch Safari, and then you lose your place in Facebook. Or, you know, it's harder to forward interesting things from your RSS feed, etc. Google Reader works pretty well, but it's still definitely better on my laptop, with real tabs and mice and everything.

A: Yeah, that's the beauty of it! It all becomes like 20% more painful, and you only end up doing the stuff you care about. It turns out once your raise the friction for checking your email past zero, you check it a LOT less frequently. And the real beauty of it is that you don't really miss anything.

B: Nice. It's the same thing as putting the chips in a bowl, and leaving the bag in the kitchen. If you don't care about eating them enough to walk one room over, you probably shouldn't be eating them at all.

A: Those ARE the same thing!

between two students discussing movies in the lunchroom of Ryan Hall November 17, 2009

A: Hey, you're kind of a scary-movie guy, right?

B: Yeah, I guess so. I've seen most of the Saws.

A: That qualifies you.

B: Actually, I just saw The Orphan, have you seen it?

A: No.

B: It was OK. Reasonably scary. I'm sure it set back adoptions in this country by fifteen years.

A: Haha, perfect.

B: Why do you ask?

A: Well, I'm sure you'll laugh at this, but Beth and I watched Up last night

B: THAT MOVIE IS SO SCARY!

A: You really think so?

B: Oh man, yeah! Like, just totally terrifying! When all those dogs were chasing the bird! Especially that main dog, the Doberman, I hated that one!

A: I know! And how about when the main guy started talking about all the other "bandits" that have chased him!

B: Yeah! And he had all their goggles on the coconuts, and you realized that he was just crazy! I'm getting shivers just talking about it.

A: Who in their right mind would take a child to see that?

B: I have no idea, seriously. I thought it was great, but as a kid I think my takeaway would've been "Growing old sucks, and at any point you may be chased by extremely intelligent, vicious talking dogs."

at a Chicago Tech event, between two demoers discussing other attendees, while a third looks around November 16, 2009

A: I got dibs if the two hot ones come over.

B: No way, dude. It's whoever makes eye contact first, always.

A: Nope, I called 'em.

B: What do you care? You're married.

A: It's not like I'm going to invite them out for drinks afterwards or anything. I just want to talk to them.

B: But why? Why do you care?

A: I thought it was kind of accepted that talking to attractive people was inherently pleasurable.

B: No, that's not accepted at all. It's only pleasurable because there is the potential for more. If there is no potential, like if you're MARRIED, then it's not inherently pleasurable. They may as well be another dude; there's whatever conversational pleasure is there, but there's no modifiers or anything.

A: No way.

B: It'd be like talking to John the Baptist if you knew Jesus didn't exist. If there's no chance of Jesus coming later, you have no reason to talk to John. Just send him back to the desert.

A: Then why do you want to talk to them?

B: Well, there's a Jesus for me. Or at least the potential of Jesus. That's why I like talking to John.

A: I think this metaphor is taking a turn for the heretical. Somewhere, Jesus is rolling over in his empty tomb!

B: Wah wah.

Tom: Bring me the head of John the Baptist!

A: I don't think that makes any sense here, Tom.

Tom: Yeah, I wasn't really paying attention to what you guys were saying. I was keeping an eye out for those two hot ones.

in Tech, Room L256 November 13, 2009

A: It was touch and go there for awhile, but it looks like my big toe will not actually become in-grown.

B: Shew! We were all praying for you.

A: Don't snark. That would've been a total pain, outpatient surgery and all.

B: Yeah, well, that's why you don't pick your toenails.

A: I know that now.

B: Glad you caught on.

A: But I've been examining my toenail pretty regularly, and it's really interesting. Do you know how they work?

B: Toes?

A: No, nails. Or fingernails.

B: Yeah, I guess.

A: Well don't tell me, I'm trying to figure it out for myself.

B: What is there to figure out?

A: The relationship between them growing from the end and attaching to the rest of your toe. I know it involves a "base" and a "bed", but I don't know what either of those mean. I mean, I know what they mean, but not in this context. But the toenail is growing out towards the end of your toe, but it's also kind of glued down. If it's glued down, how does it keep growing out? You can't glue one block of wood to another and then slide the one on top!

B: Hurm. Yeah, I don't know how that works actually. I'm going to look it up, I just got this sweet Wikipedia app on my iPhone

A: Spoiler alert! Spoiler alert, I don't want to know! I'm going to figure this out purely through introspection! Introspecting on my big toe!

on the Metra North Pacific Line, headed south to Ogilvie November 12, 2009

A: This lets off right near the Lyric Opera, right?

B: Yeah, it's just across the bridge.

A: That's right. The Opera Hovse.

B: What?

A: On the side of the Lyric, it calls it an Opera HOVSE. Like with a "v" instead of a "u".

B: Oh, I get it.

A: Yeah, that V/U thing drives me crazy.

B: Because it's faux old-timey? Like "Ice-Cream Shoppe" or something?

A: No, I'm fine with wanting to kind of harken back historically or whatever. It's an opera after all. It's clear that all opera has is a past.

B: It certainly doesn't have a future!

A: Zing! But, the V/U thing. Gah. Couldn't those guys hear the difference? I don't understand how they weren't constantly confused about what they were saying.

B: Really? You know that it was still pronounced differently, right? "Hovse" with a "v" was still just pronounced like "house".

A: Was "victory" pronounced like "u-ictory"? They just couldn't hear the difference?

B: What? No. It just made different sounds based on what word it was in.

A: That sounds crazy complicated.

B: You know we do the same thing, right? "Cent" and "cat" both start with "c". The way a letter's pronounced changes with the word, there's a million other examples.

A: So "v" used to be like "c" is now? And then, they split it into "u" and "v" at some point for whatever reason?

B: Yeah.

A: Oh. I thought it was more complicated than that.

B: Nope.

A: Do you think "c" will ever split into two letters? One for hard "c" and one for soft "c"?

B: I don't know. Is that what "k" is?

A: Ehhh. I thought "k" was around before "c", but who knows?

B: Do you think it's a coincidence that a "k" looks like an "l" immediately followed by a "c"?

A: Maybe? You think maybe "l" and "c" together used to make the hard "c" sound, and eventually they just became one letter?

B: It's possible. I really have no idea.

A: Man. The one time we need a linguist, and there are none around.

in the hallway November 12, 2009

A: Well, look, you and I have a complicated relationship.

B: Yeah, we do. ... It's kind of strange, actually, I have no idea WHY it's complicated.

A: Me neither. The explanation is itself perhaps complicated.

B: Perhaps.

during a discussion of recently attend concerts November 11, 2009

A: I saw Mount Eerie this weekend.

B: Oh yeah, where? That's the Microphones guy, right?

A: At this tiny little comedy theatre called the Lakeshore Theatre. And yeah, that's him, he changed his band name a few albums back.

B: How were they?

A: Well... do you listen to them much?

B: Not really. I have the Shimmer?

A: The Glow

B: Yeah, I have that one and like it pretty well. It's all kind of low-fi and fuzzy right?

A: Yeah, for sure. Well, he's sort of gotten progressively way noisier since then.

B: Uh oh.

A: Exactly. He does this thing, which I like really, where it's kind of noisy and staticy, and not really musical at all. And it starts to get kind of old, and then the song really opens up all of a sudden, and he's got this kind of clear voice, and it ends up being really pretty. Plus, it kind of goes with all his songs about nature and landscapes and everything, you know, you can kind of imagine like being underwater during the noisy parts and then finally arriving on land for the pretty parts.

B: But he didn't do that live?

A: Well. The whole thing is based on part of the song being atonal, and really kind of irritating, and then the nice parts being even nicer because of that. But that whole thing breaks down when you add the traditional +20% volume that every concert has. The noisy parts become completely unbearable, and the nice parts end up not being just not enough payoff to endure the noisy parts.

B: Oh, bummer.

A: Yeah, it was actually doubly disappointing, because we left early, and when I got back home I put the Glow on, and it was still just totally terrific. Live, though, it just came across as kind of abusive. It didn't help that they were having sound problems with their equipment, and ended up with double feedback, the stuff they were putting out intentionally PLUS the accidental stuff.

B: Yikes.

A: Yeah, speaking of doubles, they had TWO drummers. 40% of the band was composed of dudes on drumsets, and get this: they were playing the exact same thing!

B: There were just two so that the drums would be twice as loud?

A: Apparently!

B: Bizarre. They had the same kits and everything?

A: Well, almost: only one of them had the five-foot tall gong.

B: That seems symptomatic.

A: It does indeed! Perhaps I actually mentioned the doubled drummers for a reason! Perhaps there is actual cognition driving my utterances!

during a discussion about pizza toppings November 11, 2009

A: It turns out that anchovies are totally delicious.

B: You know those are little fishes, right?

A: Yeah. Obviously.

B: In fact, there's model of the world in which anchovies are not normal fish at all, but instead are the little bits of crumbs that fall out of God's mouth when he's chewing. When they land in the sea, those little crumbs become anchovies.

A: That's not a model of the world, at all. Models have to have some kind of explanatory power. And, make at least the slightest bit of sense.

B: Well, it turns out that the anchovies-as-God's-mouth-droppings model ends up entailing a lot of other facts about the world. That God is real, for example. And that he eats food, although the exact nature of the food isn't specified in the model.

listening to two former high-school friends discuss their divergent paths through life November 10, 2009

A: How do you get to work now?

B: Oh, I take the bus most days. I bike in the summer when it's nice.

A: Like the "bus" bus?

B: Yeah, why?

A: I guess I just assumed that only poor people rode the bus.

B: Whoa. Racist.

A: What?

B: You just said you thought that only black people rode the bus.

A: No, I didn't. I said "poor people", not "black people".

B: Really?

A: Yeah, definitely.

B: ...

A: Sooo. I guess you're the racist one, huh?

B: Well, I think we both have things we should probably work on with regards to other races.

A: Ehhhh. Do we?

in the Ford Hallway, professors' wing November 10, 2009

A: Come in, come in! I'd off your some biscotti, but it's really good and I want to eat all of it myself. Here, sit down.

during a lull in the lunchroom conversation November 09, 2009

A: I keep staying up later and later to try and not have any dreams, but it's not working. Last night, I had three interminably long, very detailed, and crushingly dull dreams. The first one was that I saw my friend from undergrad at O'Hare and he spun this increasingly bizarre lie about what he was doing in Chicago and why it caused him to not be able to contact me to get together for dinner or something. By the end, he was there as a Somali smuggler, and I was just shaking my head and wondering why he was lying, and so badly.

B: Well, I

A: Then the second one, my Dad and I were driving down a country road, and one of the houses was having such a large party with so many people attending that the parked cars extended onto and blocked the road. Dad went in to politely ask someone to move their car. When he didn't return, I followed him into the house, where the host called me a homophobic slur. I screamed back at him, but ultimately kept my cool and was able to escort my unrealistically hot-headed father out of the house without a physical confrontation.

C: Last night

A: Then, in the third one, I was in this kind of huge boarding house with a woman who had a baby and then gave it to this orphanage. The whole thing was very Bioschocky. Has anyone played Bioshock?

B: Nope.

E: No.

A: Well, you should. It's great. Anyway, the woman would bang loudly on the orphanage door when the children were sleeping so they would wake up and cry; she would then be so upset that she would run away crying before the friendly woman who ran the orphanage could open the door. In this particular case, I was collapsed outside the door for reasons I don't recall, and after the mother had fled, the orphanage woman opened the door and saw me, and asked, "Does the sound of crying babies upset you?" and I said, "No, but the Upset cause the babies to cry" and looked down the hall in the direction the mother ran. The orphanage women suddenly understood, and nodded at me knowingly. There was also something about a vent or crawlspace in that dream.

D: Well. If you thought those three, THREE, dreams were boring to experience, you should really try to listen to them sometime. YIKES.

A: Someone had to say something!

listening to a couple grad students discussing families in room L-2019 November 06, 2009

A: I was emailing this guy that I had been sort of electronically introduced to, but never actually met, yesterday

B: That contractor dude?

A: Yeah, Thomas something. And I started to say something about him potentially having family or a wife in the area, and then I caught myself, because he might be gay or something, and not have a wife or want one or anything.

B: What'd you do?

A: I changed it to "partner." It sounded a little bit like a business partner, but I couldn't think of a better word.

B: Yeah, there isn't really a word for that yet, I don't think. "Life partner" sounds really hokey.

A: Yeah, definitely. But, after I changed it, I thought maybe I was being too politically correct or something. But then I thought that I'm sure people did similar things in the 60s or whatever, when they had to consciously force themselves to not assume a 28-year old woman was married, you know? Like, I just take that for granted, like that is sub-conscious. But the conscious frontier, for me at least, is not assuming people are straight.

B: And, for example, assuming that only two people are in a relationship is still past the conscious boundary?

A: Yeah, totally. Or like, if I refer to a dude as "he", and then he is like, "Actually, I'm transgendered" or whatever "and I'd prefer to be called 'she'." I'd be totally fine with that and everything, but I wouldn't feel embarassed for assuming, you know? And like in the 60s, they probably wouldn't be embarassed for incorrectly assuming someone is straight, even though they are fine with it.

B: Sure.

A: I wonder what the boundary will be for our kids, you know? Is it assuming two, distinct genders? Do you think that'll be the boundary? I don't know, it's kind of neat to think about, what they'll take for granted.

B: You're married, right?

A: Yeah, big time.

B: And you're 27?

A: 26, 27 in March.

B: Yeah. So maybe it's time to stop thinking about your kids as living in some far-off future.

A: ...

B: It's not like, "I wonder if their flying cars will be powered by hydrogen or fuel cells?" The questions are probably more like, "Will Obama still be President when they're born? And, if so, will it be his first or second term?"

A: ... Well, women are pregnant for like 40 weeks?

B: Yeah, roughly.

A: Great. Then I would consider myself Very Confident that it will not be Obama's first term.

while two thirty-somethings, one drunk and one less so, argued about the human experience heading north to Howard on the Red line November 04, 2009

A: I'm telling you man, she broke my heart, she really did. It's just like that movie, and

B: No! It's not like a movie!

A: But it really is

B: Don't deny yourself your humanity by just repeating emotions and actions taken from pop culture! Don't!

A: I'm not

B: Movies and TV and books! All of them!

A: Calm down, man.

B: We're different! We're more different than they let us be!

A: But all those things, they acknowledge the shared experience of heartache, or loss, or love or whatever. They remind us that other people feel those emotions and have those experiences, too. It's comforting and helpful and nice, and

B: But they reduce! They're reductions! You feel 100% loss, and I feel 100% loss, and some of that is shared, but it's only 98%! And movies or books, to sell, to make MONEY, they only give you that 98% that everyone knows! But that 2% is what makes you different from me! It's important! It's critical! And when you think in terms of movies, or stories you know or situations you've seen thgat have been explicitly ACTED or WRITTEN for you, you're throwing that 2% out! You're denying your own humanity and relegating yourself to the mean!

A: You're exaggerating

B: People and gorillas share 98% of our DNA! Should we just cut out that 2% bit that's different? Is that what you WANT? Is that what you're willing to GIVE UP in order to not have to feel for yourself?? Are you so desperate to be given a roadmap to your own experiences that you'd throw away the 2% that makes you you?!

A: The DNA thing

B: You know what that 98% of DNA is? Do you know what we share with gorillas?

A: I don't know, probably lungs and a heart and

B: No! I'll tell you what that 98% is!

A: You don't know

B: I do know! I do know! They did a study, an EXPERIMENT! Up in Canada somewhere, they took our DNA or the gorillas DNA, it doesn't matter, and they cut out the 2%! They cut right out what separates us from the apes! And they threw it in the trash! And they took the rest of it, and popped it in an egg, and it hatched! And do you know what it was?

A: This didn't happen

B: AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT WAS? It was a monster! It was a BEAST! It was a hairy creature with four thumbs, four legs, and no face, that sweated constantly and shuddered whenever it smelled a banana! And that's what movies are! That's what plots are! That's what you get when you write a story that has five acts, and a beginning and an end! It leads inexorably to that animal!

A: Dude

B: The next time your life reminds you of a story, I want you to think about that animal! And think about yourself, and how different you are from that monster, and how much difference that 2% makes, I want you to think about it.

listening to two undergrads discuss Twitter & semantics over coffee and a sandwich at Bat 17 November 03, 2009

A: You gotta stop putting a hash in front of every single word on Twitter, dude.

B: Oh, don't sweat it, I have a bash script that does it automatically.

A: That's not what I'm... Wait. Do you use a command-line Twitter client?

B: Yeah, doesn't everybody?

A: Is that why you never use double quotes? Because you'd have to escape them?

B: ... Yeah, maybe.

A: REGARDLESS. Stop putting hashes everywhere, with the syntax highlighting it looks terrible. You know what hashtags are, right?

B: I do, and I hate them! I hope my hashspam will demonstrate how limited they are as a signifier!

A: What?

B: Their limited expressability is an embarassment for the Twitterverse. 10 millions tweeters, and the most they can come up with is a hack like hashtags?

A: You understand you only get a 140 characters right? And the hashtags serve as shortcuts for context that doesn't fit the character limit?

B: Yes! I do understand! That's why I have submitted my HashTag spec to IEEE! It takes the brevity of hashtags and adds DEEPER SEMANTICS.

A: Like what?

B: Well, for example. What if your post is only tangentially related to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia? Currently, you are restricted to a BINARY CLASSIFICATION: either you include #sunny or you don't! With my extensions, you would instead include the simple HASH(tagname="sunny-tv-show"|value="0.5"). This RICHER SEMANTICS allows for DEEPER EXPRESSITIVITY.

A: But

B: Negation is also allowed! So in a typical use-case where you refer to the characters in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but not the show proper, you could do HASH(tagname="sunny-tv-show"|value="-1.0"). This would allow current followers or future SEMANTICALLY-AWARE FOLLOW-AGENTS to correctly place your tweet in their HIERARCHICAL INTERNAL DATA STRUCTURES.

A: Who

B: My HashTag format is both HUMAN and MACHINE-READABLE, and is FORWARD-COMPATIBLE. For example, I am working on an extension that permits NON-UTF8 HASHTAGS ATTRIBUTES to pave the way for FUTURE INTERNATIONALIZATION. This extension works just as you'd expect: you first specify the encoding using the reserved ENC tag with curly braces, then the tag itself, like ENC{UTF8|HASH(tagname="sunny-tv-show"|value=".2832")}.

A: Why in the world would someone tag their own tweet with a hash value of .2832? Why would they possibly use so many significant digits?

B: Well, humans may not, but future SMART TWITTER CLIENTS could add these kinds of tags and values automatically. The standard specifies that all values are represented internally as 64-BIT DOUBLES so precision isn't a concern.

A: How would you actually use this?

B: Oh, I don't know. Something like "Did anyone else see last night's Sunny? Rowdy Roddy Piper was awesome, lol! ENC{UTF8|HASH(tagname="rowdy-roddy-piper-wrestler"|value=".75")|HASH(tagname="sunny-tv-show"|value=".6")|HASH(tagname="sun-astronomical-body"|value="-1.0")|HASH(tagname="sunny-song-bobby-hebb"|value="-1.0")}"

A: Oh, thanks for clarifying which "Sunny" you were referring to. I was genuinely confused whether it was the TV show we talk about all the time, the Sun in the sky, or the song by some guy name Bobby Hebb that I've never ever heard of.

B: Don't be sarcastic. I admit that these particular tags may be more useful to FUTURE SEMANTICALLY-AWARE

A: Yeah, I get it. It was also way more than 140 characters. Way way more.

B: Was it? Wait, did I specify the encoding?

A: Yeah.

B: Ok, well that wasn't technically necessary, because the specification assumes UTF8 unless it's explicitly set to something else. So if I drop the ENC, that saves like five characters, do you think it's still over 140?

A: I don't know, dude. But yeah, yeah. I'm sure it's still way over. In a whole lot of ways.

passing through Norris dining hall November 02, 2009

A: He's just some dude. His thesis was "Cock of the Wok: Sriracha as Self-Immolation" if that tells you anything.

on 206 October 29, 2009

A: Come on, dude.

B: No, man, I'm working late tonight.

A: Booooo. You know what old people say: "I regret way more things that I DIDN'T do than things that I DID do."

B: Yeah, successful people say that. That's because they know they either did exactly the amount of work required to be successful, or, way more likely, they did TOO much work. So they could've and should've done less and gone out more or whatever. You don't hear people who didn't quite into law school say, "Boy, I wish I would've gone out more!" On the contrary, they're kicking themselves and thinking, "I regret the things I did!"

A: Well, they MAY be thinking that. BUT. BUT. If they weren't even close to getting in, they should've just tossed in the towel and went out and got drunk more with their friends!

B: Are you saying I'm not even close to graduating?

A: Whoa bro. You went there, not me.

eating in Tech Express October 27, 2009

A: I know it's dumb, but whenever I hear about a boyfriend or husband or whatever being bad to their nice girlfriend, it makes me be nicer to Beth.

B: Oh yeah? I assume we're talking about Mark and Jan, right?

A: Yeah, the whole situation just makes me really not like him.

B: Sure.

A: So, now it's like I'm being extra nice to Beth just to show that douchebag how easy it is to be supportive and friendly to your cool girlfriend. It's not like it's hard or anything. I even took out the trash preemptively last night, just to kind of rub it in. I'm not going to actually tell him or anything, but it gave me some kind of weird satisfaction.

B: It's like running up the score against a team you heard saying racist stuff before the game.

A: Wow, it's EXACTLY like that. You just want to grind them into the ground.

B: Oh, absolutely.

waiting for a train at North & Clybourn October 26, 2009

A: You know, I've only been married for a few weeks now, and I can already tell: marriage is way easier than I thought it would be.

B: Oh yeah?

A: Yeah, definitely. People make it out to be this big deal, that you'll have to work at it and everything. But nope. It's just like you've been dating for years and years, with a nice little dollop of mushiness on top.

B: You don't think that'll change? With kids, or losing jobs, or deaths in the family, or getting old, or any of that stuff?

A: Nope, I really don't.

B: What's the reason for your confidence?

A: My brain. I've been thinking about it.

backed up on I-90 October 26, 2009

A: It's not a big deal or anything, but you remember when you said that "Mark cried like a girl" last night?

B: Haha, yeah, he totally did.

A: Yeah, well, I mean. That's kind of not nice, right? You're implying that women cry all the time, that we're weaker, or more emotional and less logical, or whatever. It's not a big deal, it's just been bugging me.

B: No, I didn't mean it like that!

A: No, I know

B: I just meant it, like in a bad way. It didn't have anything to do with women or girls or whatever, I really just meant it as an insult.

A: Yeah. Well. It's kind of insulting to US, right, as women, because we do actually cry as girls, or women. So now you're actually making this thing we do into an insult, which is kind of thoughtless towards us right?

B: No, but it doesn't have anything to do with you guys! See? I meant it in a strictly derogatory manner!

A: I think there's a miscommunication going on here.

B: No, I don't think so.

A: Really?

at Zooops' October 26, 2009

A: But you just can't talk like that to people who work for you anymore. For better or worse,

B: Better.

A: well... Whether you like it or not

B: We all like it.

A: Do we?

B: Yes, absolutely.

A: Well, regardless. If you say that kind of stuff now, it's definitely sexual harassment.

B: It always was! It's just now you can get in trouble for it, as you totally should.

A: Right, well. I think the jury may still be out for some people.

B: For you?

A: No, no, of course not. But I can tell that your mind is pretty well made up.

B: Yeah, of course! This isn't a hard one!

at Bat 17 October 26, 2009

A: Yeah, but see, no one ever actually argues AGAINST marijuana being legalized.

B: Oh, sure they do.

A: I'm sure they do somewhere, but I have never actually heard anyone argue the position.

B: Well, people say that it's a gateway drug, or makes your worthless or whatever. Those people are arguing against it being legalized.

A: See, that's it! People kind of state those positions, but they're always attributed to someone else! I've never actually heard anyone say, "I think marijuana should remain illegal because it is a gateway to harder drugs." Have you?

B: Uhhh... no. No, I guess not. That's just because of the people we hang out with, though, a bunch of liberal 20-somethings aren't going to argue that point.

A: But I have heard people say they don't trust Obama! I've heard people say that Bush was misunderstood and that history will vindicate him. I've heard other kind of conservative viewpoints, but never on pot.

B: When it comes to pot, it's always a meta-argument?

A: Well. I was thinking more that it's always a second-order argument.

B: Uh, ok. It's sort of like U2.

A: How?

B: When you see them on TV, there are always a lot of people at their shows. But I don't know anyone who has ever been to a U2 show, or even has the slightest interest in going.

A: I think that's a little different, but right on.

B: We need to find this cave of pot-hating U2 fans and tell them to stop letting their viewpoints seep into the general consciousness.

in 215 October 22, 2009

A: That's why I'm genuinely not worried about the music industry collapsing, or piracy driving away movies or whatever. I really think that if no new media were ever created, no new content of any kind, I have enough music, books, and videogames in my apartment at this very moment to keep my occupied until I die. And that's just the stuff I already own! I really just don't need any new stuff. There's a finite amount a person can consume in their life, but the raw amount of it just keeps growing. Stop. We don't need any more books written, or albums released or whatever. We don't even listen to the ones we have!

B: Yeah, so anyway. Did you see the new Call of Duty trailer?

A: Oh man. Day One purchase, no question.

in my bedroom September 29, 2009

A: That hole in your jeans is getting bigger, eh?

B: ...yeah.

A: And you wear those pants like every day right?

B: Well, I try to wear the black ones once a week.

A: ...

B: They'll hold together. Hear me baby? Hold together!

near the Stoppe September 22, 2009

A: Eww!

B: Nasty, dude.

C: Oh, sorry, guys. I have been watching a lot of Coupling lately and I'm really into bawdy humor right now.

A: That wasn't bawdy, man, it was... disgusting.

B: And explicit.

A: And just really, really gross.

on the 201 September 17, 2009

A: You know who DJ AM is, right?

B: Yeah, he died in a plane crash like a year ago, yeah?

A: Well, he was in one, but he didn't die. I think some other people did though. Regardless, he overdosed on crack and died like a week or two ago.

B: Right on. Was he a big crackhead or what?

A: That's just it. He used to be, but like eleven years ago he got clean. So he's been clean for like eleven years, but still kind of dealing with the plane crash and everything, and then MTV gives him a deal to do a whole season of a reality TV show, where he goes around and talks to druggy kids, or yells at them or whatever to try and get them to not do drugs. And at one point in the series, he buys a crackpipe to show how easy it is!

B: WOW! That is a TERRIBLE idea!

A: YEAH! I know! And I guess he was like, "Wow, I haven't held one of these in so long... it still feels like electricity in my hand." So now MTV is trying to decide whether or not to air the season

B: My prediction? Yeah, they sure will, they totally will.

A: Haha. Oh yeah. What a big surprise that will be. And they released this statement and all about how tragic it is to see him go, that he did all this outreach with kids on their show, etc.

B: Oh yeah, sure they did. Did they Photoshop out the big knife in his back that said MTV on the handle?

A: Nice one, you should make political cartoons or something.

B: I hate political cartoons. I think the cartoonists are all conceited, thinking their incoherent drawing of an elephant on a barrel with a donkey in a burning tree or whatever is really Speaking Truth to Power or something.

A: Yeah, I don't like them either. But yeah, crazy about that guy huh?

B: Yeah, totally ridiculous.

in the Lab September 17, 2009

A: Exactly. I think Dan Brown is really the Tom Green of writing.

B: What? How?

A: Both have three letters in their first name, five letters in their last. ALSO, and this is crucial: both last names are colors.

B: Wow. Congratulations. You've created a purely lexical metaphor. Amazing. Humorists and wits have always wondered what was beneath puns on the ladder, and you've found it.

A: There's semantics there! They're both colors! UNLESS YOU DON'T THINK THAT IS-A AND SET RELATIONSHIPS FORM THE BASIS OF SEMANTICS???? HMMMM?

at D&D Grocers September 15, 2009

A: Well, what do you think I should do?

B: Hmm?

A: What would you do if you were in my position?

B: Probably kill myself.

A: What? No, no. What would you do about the paper?

B: Oh, oh, sorry. I think go ahead and submit it.

A: Ok. ... What was the whole thing about killing yourself if you were me?

B: Sorry, I wasn't paying much attention.

A: Yeah, ok, but. I mean, that doesn't explain why you would say you would kill yourself, if, you know. You were me.

B: ... yeah. No, it doesn't explain it. There's... other things.

A: ...

B: Hey, I gotta go, I'll catch you later.

A: Ok... bye man.

B: Probably.

A: ...

four desks down September 14, 2009

A: Well, I mean, it ties in with the whole concept of Extremely Loud Glitchy Electronic as Self-Immolation.

B: Sure, the same destructive drive that causes people to listen to Secret Diary instead of Feed the Animals.

A: One and the same.

in the office next door September 03, 2009

A: I FINALLY figured out what my code was doing.

B: Oh yeah? What was the problem?

A: Oh, there was no problem, it was working fine. I just finally figured it out conceptually I mean. It turns out it's a tree! That's the main datastructure. Duh, it's obvious now, haha.

B: How did you not know that ahead of time?

A: Well, I just kept trying different things till it worked properly.

B: You know... most people probably plan that kind of thing out ahead of time.

A: Maybe. I think by this point that I have enough instinct built up that beginning by trying to pick the right abstraction is probably a bad idea. I think about it and try things until it works and makes sense, and then you can look back and think, "Oh it's a tree!" or "Oh, it recurses!" It's subconscious baby, it's all subconscious.

B: Are you bothered that you've internalized various data structures and algorithms to such a degree that some ancient reptilian part of your brain is able to use them?

A: Not at all, my man, not at all.

on the Red Line August 31, 2009

A: It's been a few years now since I first saw it, and I've rewatched it a few times, and I have become more and more convinced that The Office, the British version I mean, really is the best piece of TV ever produced, and probably still is if you include movies, it's just so

B: Well, you still haven't seen The Wire yet, right? You can't say anything about The Best TV EVAR if you haven't even seen The Wire.

A: You didn't let me finish! I was going to say, "it's just good, and if you interrupt me to mention The Wire, I swear by all that's holy that I'll never ever ever watch it." And you went for it! HA!

B: <Sniff> Well it's your loss.

A: But it's no loss! I genuinely have no desire to ever see it! HA!

at a table in the back of Zing's August 28, 2009

A: I'm thinking about getting contacts.

B: Oh yeah? Something you might want to try instead is jam a finger in your eye a few hundred times and light three hundred dollars on fire. Save you a trip to the eye doctor.

A: That bad, huh?

B: A good way to simulate contacts while still wearing glasses is to modify them so that they constantly eat money and require a small bag of peripherals if you want to go on a trip, say. You should also mess up the prescription by 10-15%, and modify them so that they constantly blow a dry, irritating wind in your eyes.

in the waiting room August 26, 2009

A: I think Snow Patrol's strong pop sensibilities have given them an undeserved bad rap in the indie music community.

B: Yeah, either that or the fact that they're terrible.

in the basement of Zorb's August 26, 2009

A: Well, it's like She said, the secret to putting in contacts is that you really have to buy into the notion that touching your eyeball with your finger is a neat thing to do. Once you internalize that, it's trivial.

in Tech sub-basement August 26, 2009

A: I'm amazed, since I get contacts, how many people comment on it like it was a vanity thing. They'll say like, "Oh, you got contacts. I guess they're cheaper than a gym membership."

B: What, you thought you were the only person who's copped to the fact that glasses make you look like a huge dork?

A: I know, right? It's like, Get a room, you four-eyed nerds!

on the Metra, stuck between Main Street and Roger's Park August 25, 2009

A: Well, I mean, that's the thing, right? That's the thing that people don't understand about addiction, or eating, or depression, or grad school, or whatever.

B: Haha, I appreciate your clustering there.

A: I'm serious! People, and I think TV and movies and everything do society a real disservice here, I really do, people think that hard decisions is a matter of determination, you know? It's like, in the movies, doing drugs and addiction or whatever is presented as a sort of contest of wills within a rational being, you know? Sometimes, it's like literally a sweaty alcoholic looking at a bottle, or walking past a bar, and considering his options, and it's like, they present it, you know, not literally, or whatever, with an angel and a demon on each shoulder, trying to convince the guy, but this is the problem: the guy is rational! They show the guy being rational, or at least as rational as he normally is, as anyone else, and that's not being honest. That's not true, it's not the way it is. If it were real, if they should've how it really was, the angel and demon would be just running around inside the guy's brain, just tearing it up in there, rearranging things, and wiring neurons as they see fit, you know? And the guy wouldn't know! There is no guy to know! That's the thing, the "guy" or whatever, he's just patterns of neurons with electricity in them, you know? So how could he know that his neurons are being rewired? It's fundamentally different than reading reviews of two movies to decide which one to rent, right, it's fundamentally different. The angel and demon are not reviewers! They are not present arguments to a mind! They're changing the substrate with which the mind evaluates arguments! And the real kicker is, the real kicker is that the angel and the demon are rewiring each other too. And themselves! It's just rewiring, it's all being rewired and the idea that the guy is actually evaluating this decision, evaluating anything at all, is just totally phony. It's like, you never actually consider a piece of cake, and then decide to go for a jog instead or eat Dannon's new Yoplait healthy yogurt or whatever people do in the yogurt commercials. It's not a demon saying Cake and an angel saying Jog and a Yogurt, and you smiling self-satisfactorily and blowing the demon off your shoulder, and he flails around in the air and then lands with a thud while the angel looks smug. I wish that's what it was! I do! But it's not, it's the demon going right into your brain, right where you are, and making you think, and you're genuinely thinking this right, now, as genuinely as you think anything, and you think, you actually think, you have the thought, "You know, I went for a jog yesterday" or "It's just a small piece of cake" or "I'll go for a job tomorrow." You actually think that. And it's not really a demon or anything, of course, it's just your brain rewiring itself.

B: And where does grad school fit into this?

A: Well, it's like, Ok, everything thinks grad school is Hard, right? You heard that, I heard that, and you went in thinking, "Ok, this is going to be hard." And your conception, at least my conception, and I assume your conception too, was it would be TV-Hard, you know? Movie-Hard. A rational battle between Sticking With It and Giving In, Tossing In the Towel. And the grounds this battle would be fought on, you know, are "I'm really tired but I need to stay up with my officemate another four hours to get this paper submitted" or "Nothing is working right now, and a gruff but understanding post-doc buys you a cup of coffee and encourages you to stick with it a little longer" or "A mean old professor yells at you presenting your paper at a conference and you have to stick by your guns." But that's not it, that's not what's hard. What's hard is getting up in the morning and thinking, "I hate this, I hate every part of it." You know? Or seeing your friends get jobs and be happy and go out, and you think, "This was a mistake, and everyday I spend here just compounds it." Or, you know, "I genuinely don't believe what I'm working on, it's all garbage, it really is." And you're actually thinking this, you know? You're not hearing a little devil say it, and you're not evaluating it, you're genuinely thinking those thoughts, just like you think, "I'm hungry" or "Those are cool shoes" or "I can't wait till I get till NetFlix sends the next DVD of It's Always Sunny," you know? They're real thoughts. That's what's hard, that's what's hard about it.

on the 201, towards Old Orchard August 25, 2009

A: So apparently there is normal barley AND quick-cook barley.

B: Ha! You're kidding.

A: Yeah! I know it's ridiculous, like not only is barley a real thing, which is weird enough..

B: Yeah, I kind of thought it was something that Tolkien made up, for destitute hobbits to eat or something.

A: Yeah! Me too! Apparently, it's real, cause I had to go into Dominick's and ask where it was, and the guy directs me to the, like, aisle for hippies and woodland creatures, you know, where they keep the parts of the wheat that are normaly left for late winter when all the tasty stuff has been eaten, and critters are ingesting anything they can to make it through the winter. And then it's not even the right kind! It's like, Hey, Mother Nature, meets me halfway here, I'm eating BARLEY.

B: What does She want from you? You know, I rode my back into work the other day and it rained on me! Looks like I've learned my lesson, I'm driving from here on out! I didn't sign up to be abused! Thanks for nothing!

A: Preach it, man. You bike in, you're trying to be a patriot, and what do you get?

B: Rained on! I'm not having it. How was it, by the way?

A: How was what?

B: The barley.

A: Oh, yeah. I'm here to tell you brother, that stuff was delicious, seriously.

near Zipf's August 25, 2009

A: Well, you know, build something that you want to use. And then eat your own dog-food and all of that.

B: Yeah, I think that, typically, when you hear advice like that, it's assumed that you're don't have an undiagnosed case of Asbergers, with, you know, some probably light OCD-type stuff in there too.

A: Well, it's good advice regardless.

B: I don't think it is.

one room down August 20, 2009

A: Have you ever gone to church, or read through a hymnal or whatever, but mentally replaced all the references to God or Jesus or whatever with "Mein Fuhrer"? It's kind of creepy. It works with "Dear Leader", too, but I think it's not as creepy because we don't have the same background, you know, we're closer to Nazism than Communism in North Korea.

B: Wow, deep. Are you implying that the kind of hero/God-worship in mainstream churches has echos in Fascism? WHAT?! You have to be the first person to ever think of that.

A: Look, I know it's not a big revelation or anything, but try it sometime, it is genuinely a little weird.

C: Are you guys talking about mentally replacing one proper noun with another in a ritualized situation?

A: I guess?

C: Try watching Raiders of the Lost Ark sometime, but mentally replace every reference to "the Ark" with "the MacGuffin." It's awesome.

B: Now that, that is clever.

Westbound on the 201 August 18, 2009

A: There are songs worth singing!

in the lunchroom, Ford Building second floor August 06, 2009

A: I'm thinking about moving my website from Apache/PHP to Lighttpd/Passenger/Sinatra.

B: Oh, I didn't even realize you'd finished it.

A: I haven't.

B: ... and you're already experiencing performance issues?

A: No, no. It's all just static content.

B: So, you're switching...

A: Yeah, just to do it.

B: ... Cool.

in the Ford Building hallway August 06, 2009

A: Hey, do you know of like just a little timer thing for Macs? I just need a thing that beeps in three minutes so I stop steeping the tea.

B: You can't remember something three minutes from now?

A: Well, it's nice to be able to offload it.

B: There's probably a Dashboard widget thing that does it.

A: Yeah, I had one, but it was a pain and Dashboard is a dog man, I turned that thing off months ago.

C: Quicksilver'll do it.

B: Will do what?

C: Anything you can do in Quicksilver, you can also setup to trigger in the future.

A: Really?

C: Yeah man. It's Control-Enter. It's even got a nice little English parser so you can just do "Three M" for three minute or whatever. So just do a Large Type for "tea" or something, and set it for the future.

A: Man. Quicksilver. Of course!

C: Yeah, I know, it's ridiculous.

B: Seriously.

D: Hey, do you guys want to sign my petition for an entirely Quicksilver- and TextMate-based OS?

C: YES.

in the back of the 201 August 05, 2009

A: Oh, sure, NOW it looks like the newspapers printed a birth announcement for him. I'm sure there's no way the CIA could break into two Hawaiian newspapers' archives and plant the announcements, it's not like the CIA is a huge collection of technologically advanced, highly secretive spies or anything. They can topple Central American regimes! I'm sure they can manage breaking into the Maui Sun-Times, or whatever it is. I'm telling you, man, it's a conspiracy!

B: "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity,", in this case, yours.

C: Ohh! Diss!

in Tech, M Wing hallway August 03, 2009

A: It's like, I get on there, and I look at their pictures, and they're right in the middle of transitioning from Someone I Know into Someone I Don't. You can see them, right in the process of just fading into the wallpaper, going from a named role to just Man in the Crowd #14.

B: Wow, been listening to a lot of Dashboard Confessional, huh?

A: Look, just cause it's in an angsty pop song doesn't mean it's not true.

B: Just that it's obvious.

A: No, that it's universal. Part of the human condition. It's ok to remark upon the human condition!

at the bar at Bat 17 August 03, 2009

A: I think that's going to be my big contribution to the world, actually. Applying the lessons of why videogames are fun to the real world, to help people.

B: But aren't videogames fun because they're adolescent power fantasies?

A: Well, that's part of it. But I think it's mainly more other things. They have a smooth learning curve, they give regular feedback/reward, you develop a mastery of them. I mean, they're actually designed to appeal to people and make them happy, in a way that the real world isn't.

B: So what would it be?

A: Well, you know. It's thinking about how we could let people develop mastery in the real world. How we can give constant feedback to people. But in the real world.

B: Right, I get that. So what would it be?

A: Well, my main idea so far is a souped-up scale, like for weighing yourself. One of the big problems that people have with diets, or exercise programs, is that you don't get feedback, you know? Like you work out for a week, but your weight doesn't really change, even though you're doing good things for yourself, you know? And that's because the scale isn't that smart.

B: Well, it's because the scale is doing what it's designed to. It's accurately reporting your weight. It's not it's fault that people's weight fluctuates.

A: Well, yeah. Right. BUT. If the scale knew what you were eating, or how much you were exercising, it could actively help you, motivate you.

B: So, the scale would be like, "You still weigh 200 pounds, but good job on that salad for lunch?"

A: No, it would just fudge your weight. It would probably over-weigh you at the start, and then it would have some wiggle room to adjust your weight up or down depending how you were doing. So if you've been going to the gym for a week, it would make sure that it looks like you are losing weight.

B: So it would lie to you?

A: No, it would encourage you. It wouldn't just have to be weight, either. It could screw around with your body fat percentage. That number doesn't really mean anything anyways, it would be easy to toss it around a little.

B: So if someone skips the gym, it's like their body fat jumps up ten percentage points all of a sudden?

A: Well, it would have to be more subtle, but yeah. That's the idea.

outside The Left Hand July 31, 2009

A: No, I can't, I'm headed to the gym.

B: Man, you've been gymming it up a lot lately. Trying to get in shape for the ol' wedding?

A: No, not really. Well, that'll be nice too, but it's really because I'm planning on going as Kratos for Halloween, and I want to make it at least a little plausible.

B: Kratos, the God of War guy?

A: Yep.

B: He's huge, dude. He's built like the Rock right? I think plausibility is going to be tough there.

A: Well, he's not as tall as the Rock.

B: ... Ok.

A: I still have a few months.

at Bing's July 31, 2009

A: It's just, the whole thing, even just thinking about it makes me... tense. Really tense.

B: Well, just put your head down and move forward. It's the only way it's going to get easier.

A: Really? That works?

B: Yeah. Of course. How could it not?

behind the Wall July 29, 2009

A: I think it was Einstein that said, "Explicability is more important than knowledge."

on Parker's Trail July 28, 2009

A: Hey, how's your iPhone app coming along?

B: Pretty well, actually, thanks. I think got like, maybe eight Bones in last week? And then three last night. I figure I'm probably maybe 10 or 15 more Bones out from getting it finished, and then testing.

A: Bones?

B: Yeah, it's a unit of work that's exactly equivalent to how much you can get done when your attention is split 70/30 with an episode of Bones.

outside Tator Torta's July 27, 2009

A: I think I'm going to get contacts.

B: Oh yeah? Have you ever worn them before?

A: No, I've always just had my glasses. I think though, you know, not to be vain or whatever, but I think I look better without them. So I'm thinking maybe I should get contacts.

B: Do you think maybe that's because whenever you see yourself without glasses you're... not wearing your glasses?

A: Yeah, I've considered it. It's too troubling to dwell on, I think.

in the Ford Building, 2.204 July 27, 2009

A: I'm drinking less coffee.

B: Oh yeah?

A: Yeah, I'm down to one, maybe one and a half cups in the morning.

B: Well. That's kind of misleading, right, because you switched to that big travel mug? So a cup of that is like two, maybe two and a half normal cups right?

A: Well, yeah, depends on how you count it.

B: I don't think it does.

in the Ford Building, 2.204 July 27, 2009

A: I'm drinking less coffee.

B: Oh yeah?

A: Yeah, I'm down to one, maybe one and a half cups in the morning.

B: Well. That's kind of misleading, right, because you switched to that big travel mug? So a cup of that is like two, maybe two and a half normal cups right?

A: Well, yeah, depends on how you count it.

B: I don't think it does.

at the bar at Bandit's July 27, 2009

A: ... well, you know, it just gets frustrating, you have all this family that you're inviting, and you start doing the math of how much a plate costs...

B: NOOOO!

A: ... and then you're start thinking that if you DIDN'T invite them, then you would have room and money for your friends...

B: NOOOO!

A: ... and then it's like, if you just didn't have it at all you know, and just spent the money on a trip or a car...

B: NOOOO! Down those paths all is Madness! Turn back! TURN BACK!

outside the Barnes & Nobles downtown July 22, 2009

A: Well, you know, it's not like I'm the straightest guy that ever walked the Earth, and

B: Wait, what? Did you kiss another dude or something?

A: What? No! Nothing like that. It's just, you know, I don't really follow sports or like hunting or whatever. I thought the new Rambo was violent and mean-spirited.

B: Sure. That doesn't make you less-straight, though. I think it'd be better to say "I'm not the manliest man" or "dudeliest dude" or something.

A: Aren't those all the same thing?

B: No, not at all. Trust me, you don't need to raise any more questions about your sexuality by saying things like "I'm not the straightest guy." You are doing yourself zero favors there, my man. Zero.

on the sidewalk near the Arch, waiting for the Walk light to change July 22, 2009

A: So I've abstracted Time.

B: Lord. Time with a capital "T"?

A: The one and only.

B: What could that possibly mean?

A: Well, you know how computers always have a clock on the desktop somewhere? Well, I realized that you only ever really need a clock to see if you need to be somewhere or not, you know? Like, "I have class at 10, is it 10 till 10 yet? Because if it is, I need to leave."

B: You're not counting someone just being curious what time it is?

A: General curiosity about time is a weakness, a crutch for impatient souls. AS I WAS SAYING. I have all the places and times I need to be somewhere entered into my calendar now, and they all have alarms set. I don't need to wonder if I should be leaving to go be someplace, the calendar will pop up and tell me! So, I have hid the clock from my menu bar, and time is officially abstracted. BOOYAH.

B: That's... look, it's an abstraction of a clock if it's anything.

A: Fine, then I've abstracted out the notion of a clock.

B: No, you haven't really. You've just created a really simple clock, it's not an abstraction. An abstraction would be like, well, you know, there are squares in two dimensions, and cubes in three dimensions, and hyper-cubes or whatever in four dimensions. So those exist, but there is an abstraction of a cube-like thing that manifests itself in different dimensions as squares or cubes or whatever. That's more of what an abstraction is.

A: I think that's really a generalization. You generalize the notion of a square or cube, and you end up with the kind of Platonic ideal of a right-angular thing that can manifest itself in different n-dimensional spaces. There's no abstraction there, it's a generalization. In fact, your cube thing was a really awful example of "abstractness."

B: ...Look, I'm going to be completely honest here, and you're not going to like it, but this conversation is a great example of why people dislike you so much. I was willing to engage in conversation with you about whether or not you "abstracted Time", which is roughly on the coherency level of "analogy space" or "iconic reification", and all of a sudden you start nit-picking the difference between abstraction and generalization.

A: It's not nits! There are important distinctions!

B: I don't care! You have to be willing to meet people more than halfway here!

near the Arch July 22, 2009

A: You're getting rid of Gmail?

B: Yep!

A: Why?

B: I think it's getting a little weird how much Google knows about me. I think they're getting too big, so I'm switching to MobileMe. I am totally fine paying a hundred bucks a year to get my email separately, plus all the other stuff.

A: Ok. So you deleted your Gmail account and everything? What happened to all your email?

B: No, no, I didn't delete it. I just set it to forward everything to my MobileMe address. And then the clever bit that I found on some webpage, is that you can setup MobileMe to use Google's outgoing servers, so anything you send from MobileMe gets dropped in Google's Sent box. So I can still search from Gmail and see everything. Neat, huh?

A: So, Gmail still sees everything?

B: Yeah, for sure, but I don't have to deal with it. So it is still tracking me and building personality models or whatever, but I don't have to be constantly reminded about it.

A: Uh, ok.

on the Orange Line to Midway July 20, 2009

A: I really enjoy my life so much that I can't imagine living it any other way.

B: Right on.

A: It's like, when I see people who have lives similar to mine, but they act very differently, I really can't understand it. Like, I know that poor people, or people with a bunch of kids or whatever, they have to do things really different. But if your life situation is even close to mine, you know? If you're life is close to mine, and you don't make up a menu for the week before going to the grocery store? That's ridiculous. If you don't have an explicit budget, and a to-do list? You're stupid. You don't bring healthy snacks to work and you end up buying chips all the time from the vending machine? I have no time for you, you're a fool. Do you think that makes me unempathetic?

B: Yes. Extremely.

in the lobby of Tech July 20, 2009

A: ... and then her boyfriend, he's just a total jockstrap, but there was this big silence, and then her boyfriend was like, "Hey, did you see the Dewie Cox movie? Your sister and I saw it last weekend, we thought it was really funny." And then I was all like, "Dewie Cox? I liked it better the first time when it was called, oh, I don't know, RAY or WALK THE LINE or ANY OTHER MOVIE ABOUT A MUSICIAN EVER."

B: You understand how parodies work, right?

just before spinning July 16, 2009

A: Hey, spheres are defined to have the lowest surface area to volume ratio of any solid, right?

B: Uh, well. They're not defined to be, really. They do, though. I don't know an actual proof or anything, but intuitively, you can imagine a wooden sphere that you paint blue and a super thin piece of plywood, with the same volume, that you also paint blue. If you break each object into a bunch of pieces with a hammer or whatever, you will see a lot of plain wood in the former-sphere pile, but almost nothing that's not blue in the thin, planar pile. So, you know. The more sphere-like an object, the lower the ratio, the less sphere-like, the higher the ratio, so spheres have the lowest ratio possible.

A: So they ARE defined to be.

B: No. George Washington isn't defined to be the first President, he just is. Natural numbers are defined to be all the integers that are greater than 0 or whatever, but spheres just ARE the objects with the lowest surface area to volume ratio.

A: Ok, sure.

B: ...

A: ...

B: What made you bring up the whole thing about spheres and surface area?

A: Oh, I was just thinking you probably have the lowest surface area to volume ratio of anyone I know.

B: Thanks. Thanks for that.

at JK Sweets July 16, 2009

A: Hey, do you know your GChat status thing doesn't change anymore? It just always says "Available".

B: Yeah, I know.

A: Did you switch chat clients or something?

B: No, it's still Adium.

A: Nice! Keyboard shortcuts for the win!

B: Haha, yeah. I just stopped changing it actually. You know how I had that Twitter account for, like, a day?

A: Yeah.

B: Well, I installed Twitterific and everything, added a bunch of people, whatever, and then I got so overwhelmed that I had to uninstall it. And then I got down on Twitter in general, and the more I thought of it, the more pointless and sad I thought it was to just Tweet anything at all. It's just like people talking too loud at parties, because they want other people to hear them, except they're not even conversing, they're just throwing stuff out there. I imagined a bus full of people, all staring straight ahead, and just speaking what they would've tweeted, no one responding or listening, just talking, and it grossed me out.

A: Well, yeah, but there's conversations and stuff too.

B: That's even worse! It's so pretentious, "I'm going to have this conversation in public so everyone can see how smart I am," it's disgusting. But then, the more I thought about it, the more I think GChat status messages are just like tweets, just total ephemera that people throw out there, information that should've been gotten through honest-to-God conversation. It's like name tags. Don't read my name from a sticker on my chest, just ask me my name! TALK TO ME AND I WILL TALK BACK AND WE WILL HAVE A CONVERSATION LIKE NORMAL PEOPLE.

A: Geez man, you're sweating.

B: I get very into this stuff, I'm sorry.

A: What are your thoughts on text messages?

B: DON'T GET ME STARTED ON TEXT MESSAGES!

A: Haha, yeah, I know, now I'm just pushing your buttons.

near the back door of Ford July 15, 2009

A: And how do you know what you think?

B: By writing it?

A: Exactly.

on the Red Line between Addison and Belmont July 09, 2009

A: ...and then all of a sudden, you realize you haven't even BEEN to Mars in like almost a week, you know? It's like: those snipers are still on the buildings, you know, terrorizing the colonists. You STILL don't have enough salvage for the thermobaric rocket, right? It's not like that's CHANGED or anything, you know? It's not like anything's ever changed.

on the 201 July 07, 2009

A: I can't think of whole grains and berries without tearing up.

in the Backstage July 07, 2009

A: Did you get that YouTube I sent you?

B: Yeah, I didn't watch it. Why do you waste so much time at work?

A: When I'm productive all day, I'm honestly scared of how much I can get done in an eight-hour period.

B: ... Yeah, it's probably time to get over that fear.

A: Yeah, I know.

in Tech Express July 07, 2009

A: It's like, "Hey man, frosted tips called, they want the 90's back."

B: Nice.

in the locker room July 02, 2009

A: I've decided that nothing is hard.

B: Bricks? Diamonds? Other kinds of stones?

A: No, like difficult. "Nothing is difficult" is what I meant.

B: Oh. That seems like a really stupid thing to say.

A: It's just what I think is all.

B: I saw you had meat for lunch, so I assume you're not a vegetarian anymore. Was it hard to stick with?

A: No, it wasn't hard. I just lost the motivation for it. It's not hard, it's just a matter of will. I didn't have the will to stick with it.

B: So it was hard to maintain the will required?

A: ... No. It was not hard.

B: What was it then?

A: It wasn't hard or difficult or whatever. It was... something else. But not hard.

B: What was it?

A: ...

B: Hmm?

A: Ok, it was hard!

B: One stupid argument down, presumably a large number to go.

south of Billington July 01, 2009

A: People say "I'm sorry" way too much.

B: But: people don't apologize enough.

A: ... Woah! You just blew my mind!

in the Tech parking lot July 01, 2009

A: I saw you finally updated your GoodReads page.

B: Yeah, you know. I don't know if I'll stick with it, but I thought I would toss it a bone. I get those emails every week with what everyone else is reading and I figured I would throw my two cents in. I guess that's probably the idea of that emailed digest.

A: Yeah, it accomplished its goal. I was flipping through the books you read, and you gave them all 5 stars. It was like six back-to-back perfect reviews. They weren't really all that good, were they?

B: Well, you know. I thought Anansi Boys really came together at the end, and Confederacy of Dunces and 2666 were way too long to give anything less than a 5/5.

A: Cognitive dissonance, sure.

B: Absolutely. Mentally, I've already given Infinite Jest a six out of five.

A: You can do that?

B: We'll find out.

in the lunch room July 01, 2009

A: I finally got back to the gym today, I forgot how enjoyable that was. When I stop going, it's so hard to get going again, but I love it when I do. I think I am going to try and go regulary right before lunch, and just row 5K everytime. So I won't go for as long in a session or whatever, but I will go four or five days a week.

B: I think that's probably the greatest tragedy of the human condition.

A: Rowing?

B: No, our memories. They're terrible, but, ironically, we always forget how bad they are. You just said how easy it is to stop going to the gym, how easy it is to forget how good you feel afterwards. And then in the same breath, you announce this ambitious plan to start going every single day. It's not going to work.

A: Well, if it's a big tragedy, shouldn't we struggle against it? "Rage against the dying of the light" or whatever?

B: Don't you dare bring Dylan Thomas into this. Don't. You. Dare.

on Fulton's lawn June 30, 2009

A: What's the matter old man? You never seen a black kid before?

B: No, young man, I've seen plenty. I just don't think you and I have much to say to each other, that's all.

in the M Wing, Tech Building June 30, 2009

A: "You know you've done enough for a Ph.D. when you feel like you've done enough for a Ph.D."

B: "You know you're ready to get married when you're genuinely excited about the kinds of gifts you receive when you get married."

at Brewery Brothers June 30, 2009

A: ...Wow.

B: Sorry. I'm tense, I'm stressed out about getting the paper done.

A: I know.

B: I just... blech. I really, really want to get it done and submitted and everything.

A: Is that really what's stressing you out?

B: Yeah, definitely.

A: Ok, then you have to promise me that you'll lighten up again as soon as it's done and in.

B: Yeah, for sure.

A: Because I don't think it's the paper, I think you're just wound up, and you've been wound up for awhile now, and you need to calm down. Everything is fine. You can't go from stressing-project to stressing-project for months before you just become a constantly stressed-out guy.

B: Yeah... I know.

on the sidewalk outside the Bahai temple May 26, 2009

A: I had a great idea for an advice website the other day, I want you to build it for me.

B: Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen.

A: No, wait! You'll love this. So a user comes to the site with a problem. And so they type in something like, "I've been having problems with my wife, "Carol," lately, and now we've gotten an attractive new woman, "Susan," in the office, and we're going on a business trip next weekend. I think Susan understands me way better than Carol, and I'm looking for advice on whether or not it would be ok for me to have an affair with Susan."

B: Wow, great motivating example, really compelling. And then people get to offer their advice or something? Voting? Social media? Twitter integration? Facebook app? Crowdsourcing? Long-tail?

A: No, none of that! That's the beauty of the site. When the user submits the question, a thing says, "Ok, your question will be on the site for seven days, and we'll send you back the best piece of advice." And then like three days later, the user gets an email like "To get advice, you also have to give advice, here is another person's question, please give your advice." And they do, and then a few days later, their piece of advice comes back.

B: So the system is pairing people up to give advice to each other?

A: Nope! That's the kicker! The question they are posed is actually just a rephrased version of their question! And the advice they get back is actually just a rephrased version of their advice!

B: What?

A: So, in my previous example, the guy may get back an email like, "My wife, "Susan," and I have been fighting recently, and we recently got a new secretary, "Marcia" in my office. We are going to a conference next week, and I was looking for advice on whether it would be ok to have an affair with Marcia during the conference." And then the guy's advice would be like, "No, you shouldn't have affairs," and then the advice he gets BACK would be all like, "No, you should not have affairs."

B: Uhh, ok. So the intuition here is that people don't actually need advice, they just think they need it?

A: Yeah! I've become convinced recently that all of the people who write into advice columns are just looking for some kind of justification or fig leaf to cover what they're doing when they know it's wrong. They're looking for the columnist to say, "Sure, you can have the affair, your wife doesn't understand you!"

B: And what makes you so convinced of this?

A: Have you ever had a real ethical or moral quandary?

B: ... No? Not that I can think of.

A: Me neither!

B: So you think no one does?

A: Yeah, probably. If there is a real quandary that gets posted to the site, it's not a big deal. It's not like the advice would do any good anyway, they probably won't listen, and if people do listen, and take their own horrible advice, they'll die eventually anyway, and it will be forgotten.

B: Hmm. Yeah. I guess I should've stopped you right when this conversation got started, huh?

at Chen's Chinese May 26, 2009

A: Books seem like one of the clearest examples of a domain where you are better off trying to satisfy and not maximize.

B: What?

A: Well, books are probably inherently the best media, right?

B: Well...

A: If you were stranded on a desert island, and you had the option of taking a completely random book, or a completely random television series with you, which would you take?

B: <sigh> The book, probably.

A: So books are inherently better than television.

B: That's really a stretch.

A: Do you want to argue that television is inherently better than books? Is that what you want to claim? You want to try and put The Wire up against, you know, the collected works of Hemingway or something? I mean, I like Lost or whatever, but it's not, you know, the cornerstone of civilization or anything. Like books are.

B: What does this have to do with anything?

A: All I'm saying is that there are literally probably a million books that I would enjoy reading. Some more than others, certainly, but there are still way, way more books I would like reading, than movies I would like seeing, or TV I would like watching, or even videogames I would like playing.

B: Well, books have been around a lot longer, you would expect that to be the case.

A: Whatever the reason, you're crazy if you're trying to maximize your decision when choosing a book to read. It's impossible to maximize, you should just pick one that sounds good, or a friend recommends, or you read a positive review for, and just pick it and read it. You'll probably like it.

B: Why are you bringing this all up?

A: I just finished reading 2666, that really long novel by the dude who died right when he was finishing it.

B: What, is that like the best book ever or something?

A: No, that's the point. It is definitely not the best book ever, but I don't regret reading it.

B: Wow, ok. You probably should've just started with "I finished my book, it was pretty good."

in the Ramada's elevator May 19, 2009

A: Well, you know. "If it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down."

B: Well, yeah. Sure. But that wasn't yellow, man, that was dark copper, and I could smell it with the door shut and the lid down. For our purposes that falls squarely in the "flush it down" category, and probably in the "see a doctor" category as well.

at the Peruvian place, just south of Market May 18, 2009

A: The idea of the modern torture methods is that they don't hurt the body, but they really effect the mind, right? Like playing tape of the baby crying all night won't kill you or anything, but it will theoretically break your mind or whatever so you'll talk. And it's the same with waterboarding.

B: Yeah, well, I think that's the idea. They end up causing a lot of physiological damage, you can't be highly stressed for months without permanent damage.

A: Sure, that make sense. But that's the idea. So they are kind of exploiting these very primal reactions--fear of drowning, stress from baby crying-- to sidestep the will or resistance of the prisoner. My question, then, is where does walling fit into this? You're just slamming a dude into a wall. I assume it hurts, but not that much. And there's no kind of reptilian fear of being pushed into a wall.

B: Well, they probably blindfold them and spin them in a circle or something, so they don't know when they're going to get pushed into a wall. I imagine that anticipation is really stressful. But yeah, it doesn't really seem to fit into the rest of the techniques.

A: Yeah, it's so flat-footed. I can imagine an interrogator dude getting mad at a resistant prisoner, punching him into a wall, and then wanting to formalize that satisfaction.

B: Yeah, I mean. I'm sure that's not where it's from. But yeah, it's kind of weird.

A: Very weird.

at the corner of Noyes and Sheridan May 18, 2009

A: Hey man, sorry if I seem tired today.

B: No problem.

A: Yeah, I'm just kind of out of it, I've had a lot going on lately.

B: I didn't even notice, don't worry about it.

A: Yeah, I've just been so busy, I was at work until 11 last night. So sorry if I've been groggy all day today. I'd love to say I could come back Monday refreshed, but I think I'm going to be slammed all weekend, too, so I could still be kind of out of it all next week.

B: No problemo.

A: Shew, I'm glad you don't think my work's been suffering, I haven't had as much time to devote to it lately as I'd like.

B: Sure.

A: I just wanted to make sure that you didn't think I was just slacking or anything, I know I'm just super super crunched right now.

B: Mhhmm.

A: Well, I gotta get going. I'll be lucky if I make it home before midnight tonight!

B: Yep. See ya.

A: Bye. If you need anything tonight, just let me know, I'll be online all night because I'm going to be at the office anyway.

B: Fine.

at ICWSM-09 May 18, 2009

Tom: I don't understand why you don't want to do another paper together. We've had three good ones.

B: I'll be honest with you, Tom. I'd love to do another paper, but I don't think you're going anywhere. There's no way I'm going to get back my time investment I would spend on you, so we're not going to work together. I'm sorry to make that cold-blooded calculation, but what can I do? It's evolution.

C: You can't do that dude. You're confusing proximate and ultimate causes.

B: What?

C: A proximate cause is the kind of basic, in-the-moment motivation. It's the answer to why? The ultimate cause is a step above, it's the reason you have the proximate cause motivation. The ultimate cause is the answer to Why?, with a capital W. So the proximate cause or motivation for eating ice cream is because it's tasty, and the ultimate cause is something like, "Early humans that enjoyed high-calorie food had more healthy offspring than humans that did not." THAT's evolution.

Tom: What about the motivation "I had a bad day, and eating ice cream makes me feel better?" That's neither proximate nor ultimate, it's somewhere in between.

C: That's right, Tom, good point. We tend to say "proximate" or "ultimate" like they are binary labels, but there really is a spectrum there. So your "feel better" motivation is more ultimate than "it tastes good", but less ultimate than the evolutionary explanation. The point is that you can't actually justify your day-to-day decisions by pleading ultimate motivations. You don't actually act on them, you only actually act on proximate motivations.

B: That's fair. Tom, I don't want to do the paper because you're stupid and I think you smell weird.

at Baja Fresh May 18, 2009

A: Which do you think sounds better, "Leered sneeringly" or "Sneered leeringly"?

B: Uhhh. How are you using it?

A: It's from the book I just started. In the first paragraph, Mark and Lisa are having dinner, and they're brother and sister, but the reader doesn't know it yet. But the sentence is "Mark sneered leeringly across the table at his sister Lisa."

B: Wait, I thought the reader didn't know they were brother and sister?

A: Oh yeah, I'm cutting that part. But I can't decide if "Mark sneered leeringly at Lisa" sounds better than "Mark leered sneeringly at Lisa," or vice versa.

B: Well, they mean different things right? What facial expression are you imagining Mark making?

A: Oh, it's not a big deal either way. He gets killed in the second paragraph, William, Lisa's husband, shoots him in the head. So it's really six of one, half-dozen of the other. But I was imagining sort of a grimace.

B: A grimace? Do you know what any of these words mean?

A: Well, they're all kind of vaguely negative facial expressions.

B: They're not vague, they have specific meanings. Sneering is kind of a nasty, dominant facial expression, leering has a kind of gross, sexual vibe to it, and grimace is like the face you make when something hurts, or you hear some really awful news.

A: Look, it doesn't matter! The dude's dead in the next paragraph! I don't need to be lectured, I was just trying to make it interesting for the reader. Forget it!

near Nerf's May 14, 2009

A: What'd you do at work today?

B: I spent a lot of time speccing out a new Macbook. Comparing the normal and the Pro, etc. I think I settled on the cheapest Pro, by the way, I think I really need the higher res screen.

A: Oh, nice. I didn't know you were looking for a new laptop.

B: Oh, I'm not. I was just looking around.

A: Is yours getting old or slowing down or something?

B: Nope, just looking around.

A: How much time did you spend doing that?

B: I don't know, maybe an hour or so? I read a lot of reviews and everything.

A: For a laptop you won't buy?

B: Yeah. Well, probably in a year or so I'll get a new one.

A: But you'll have to do all the work again, the configurations and everything will be different.

B: I know, I know. Sometimes reading about Mac laptops is an end to itself.

on the Orange Line May 13, 2009

A: Anything is forgivable, as long as its done with sincerity.

B: What? No, it's not.

A: Yes, it is. In fact, how could it be otherwise?

two tables over at Simon's April 27, 2009

A: Wait, I thought that was what you wanted?

B: At this level, even getting what I want is stressful.

at the Swirlin' Dervish April 22, 2009

A: I've got two great ideas for company or product names, along with mottos and everything.

B: Wow, mottos and everything.

A: Yeah, I know, right? ... Aren't you going to ask me what they are?

B: Fine.

A: ...

B: What are they?

A: Alright. The first is "Archimedes Fulcrum: We'll help you move the world" Nice, huh?

B: Who's Archimedes?

A: He was a Greek physicist geometrician guy, he was the one that said, "Give me a fulcrum far enough away and I can move the world."

B: Great. What does the business do?

A: It doesn't matter, it's not important. It sells enterprise solutions for load-balanced SQL Servers or something, it doesn't matter.

B: Brilliant. Stupid business model with an impossible to spell, incoherent title and motto. Was "Mr. Mxyzptlk Quotidian's Matrices: We'll Eigen the moon" already taken?

A: What?

B: It doesn't matter, I was just making the point that long, hard-to-spell, hard-to-understand names and mottos may not be the best choice.

A: Alright, then, what about this: "Coffee Spoons: Measure your life"

B: You're selling coffee spoons?

A: No, it's the name of a product or a website or something.

B: A website that sells coffee spoons?

A: No. Well I don't know yet. CoffeeSpoons.com is definitely taken though.

B: Wait, is that from The Wasteland?

A: Close! Oh, I'm so glad you got it. It's actually from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, but you were close.

B: I always imagined him sitting listlessly in a coffee shop as the world goes by outside, slowly stirring the cream in his coffee, waiting to be happy again.

A: Yeah, that's Prufrock! "I should have been a pair of ragged claws \ Scuttling across the floors of silent seas." I love that poem.

B: Yeah, but it's depressing dude.

A: I don't care. I'm going to do it.

B: You're committed to those spoons huh?

A: Or whatever it is.

at Insalada's April 22, 2009

A: And what about you, Mark? Are you a Believer?

Mark: Me? No ma'am. I don't believe in anything.

at Evanston Township High School graduation April 19, 2009

Speaker: If I had one piece of advice, and I do, it would be this: When you have a hard problem, give yourself plenty of time to thinking about it. Thinking about a problem for two minutes in the shower and three minutes at the gym everyday for two weeks is 1000 times more useful than sitting and thinking very hard about it for two hours straight.

at Ding Dong Daily April 19, 2009

A: I think the only true skill in life is being able to differentiate between things that are trends and things that are not.

B: What?

A: Like, knowing when someone just got drunk last night vs. them being an alcoholic, or knowing whether Twitter is just big right now, or whether it's genuinely indicative of some larger societal shift and is here to stay.

B: That's fine, but you really think that's the only skill? What about choosing friends, or being good at your job, or being happy?

A: Well, it's obviously not the only skill. But I think it is a really important one, and one that is often overlooked. So I said it was the "only true skill" to kind of big it up.

B: Alright, ok.

at Southport Lanes, during the third frame April 16, 2009

A: Hey, what do you call a lawyer that ingests all of his food through his butthole?

B: Gross. I don't know.

A: A "bottom feeder!"

B: Ha. Wait, why does it have to be a lawyer? Wouldn't anyone who ate with his butthole be a bottom feeder?

A: Yeah, but it works on two levels.

B: The other level being that lawyers are bottom feeders?

A: Yeah, exactly.

B: That's not another level, though. You're just making fun of lawyers. It doesn't work as a joke on two levels. It works as a joke on one level, and a really flat-footed insult on a different level.

A: Regardless, it's two levels.

B: You know levels don't stack, right? You can't combine two mediocre jokes into one really good joke. And you certainly can't combine a mediocre joke with a lame insult and create anything other than mild confusion and disinterest.

A: That's a good joke!

B: It would be a good joke, if you came up with it on the fly. If for whatever reason, a creature that ate through its butthole came up in conversation, and you jumped in with, "Boy, sounds like a real bottom feeder!" then, yeah, it would be clever.

A: I did that! Last night!

B: Ok, then it was funny last night.

A: It was! And it's still funny today.

B: No, it's not. If you get to do the setup and the punchline, you have to really kill it. It has to be a really funny punchline, because you can set it up however you like. If the setup is out of your hands, though, like it was last night, the bar is a lot lower for the punchline, because everyone knows you had to be quick to come up with it, it wasn't expected, etc.

A: But...

B: And I think you knew that actually, because you tried to spruce it up with the lawyer thing. But we already talked about how jokes don't stack, they're not cumulative, and that's not two jokes anyway.

A: Well everyone liked it last night.

B: I know, buddy, I know.

in Ten Buck Tuesday April 14, 2009

A: It's the old "syntax vs. semantics" argument.

B: ... What?

at the Taco Bell on Skokie Blvd. April 10, 2009

A: Man, I spent all day yesterday doing Flash development.

B: Oh yeah? I've never done any ActionScript, how is it?

A: Well... I guess the closest thing would be... ok, imagine you're going to go through a hedge maze. And you don't really want to do it, you were kind of dragged into doing it by your girlfriend or something, and it's an early Saturday morning, but it's raising money for a charity or something, and so you do it. So you're all alone and you get dropped off in the middle of this maze.

B: Uhhh, ok.

A: And so, you know, you start kind of walking around, going down one of the corridors, and all of a sudden, the lights go out.

B: Wait, this is indoors?

A: It doesn't matter. So now the lights are out and you're kind of angry, you didn't sign up to wander around in the dark all morning. And then you start hearing little scampering footsteps all around you and something brushes the back of your hair, and so you yell, "Alright, cut it out! I'm just trying to get through this stupid maze." And then there are little giggles all around, and then something cracks you hard on the back of the head, like a baseball or something and you fall to your knees. And now you're actually kind of freaked out, so you start running through the maze, and you hear people all around, and you run into some hedges and get tangled, and people start kind of hitting you, and so you start swinging your arms around trying to defend yourself.

B: Wait...

A: And then you feel hair in your hands, someone's hair, and you just grab it and tug as hard as you can and the guy starts shrieking, and you feel bad that you've got his hair, and you don't want to hurt anyone, but you really need to get out of there, and people start hitting you harder and so you start banging the guys head against the ground, and it's pitch black and people are trying to pull you off of them but you just keep slamming his head, and eventually he stops moving and you start digging through his pockets and by now people are hanging off your back and screaming in your ears and you find a lighter in his pocket, a big one, and you know things can't get any worse so you just start swinging the lighter around, and the attackers are scared of the light and they kind of skitter back into the corners, and so you start lighting all the hedges and they are burning higher and higher, and you can hear the people skittering in retreat, and you are moving through the maze just burning it all down behind you, and eventually you get out of there, you're fine, and no one seems disturbed that you burned down the maze, or that you've got clumps of bloody hair in your hands and cuts and bitemarks all over your back, and eventually you realize that was the only way out of the maze, and you've raised $25 dollars for charity.

B: ... Was that a dream?

A: No, that's the actual experience of developing in Flash and ActionScript. I actually had a dream about it too, but I'll spare telling you it, it was pretty strange.

at the Taco Bell on Skokie Blvd. April 10, 2009

A: Man, I spent all day yesterday doing Flash development.

B: Oh yeah? I've never done any ActionScript, how is it?

A: Well... I guess the closest thing would be... ok, imagine you're going to go through a hedge maze. And you don't really want to do it, you were kind of dragged into doing it by your girlfriend or something, and it's an early Saturday morning, but it's raising money for a charity or something, and so you do it. So you're all alone and you get dropped off in the middle of this maze.

B: Uhhh, ok.

A: And so, you know, you start kind of walking around, going down one of the corridors, and all of a sudden, the lights go out.

B: Wait, this is indoors?

A: It doesn't matter. So now the lights are out and you're kind of angry, you didn't sign up to wander around in the dark all morning. And then you start hearing little scampering footsteps all around you and something brushes the back of your hair, and so you yell, "Alright, cut it out! I'm just trying to get through this stupid maze." And then there are little giggles all around, and then something cracks you hard on the back of the head, like a baseball or something and you fall to your knees. And now you're actually kind of freaked out, so you start running through the maze, and you hear people all around, and you run into some hedges and get tangled, and people start kind of hitting you, and so you start swinging your arms around trying to defend yourself.

B: Wait...

A: And then you feel hair in your hands, someone's hair, and you just grab it and tug as hard as you can and the guy starts shrieking, and you feel bad that you've got his hair, and you don't want to hurt anyone, but you really need to get out of there, and people start hitting you harder and so you start banging the guys head against the ground, and it's pitch black and people are trying to pull you off of them but you just keep slamming his head, and eventually he stops moving and you start digging through his pockets and by now people are hanging off your back and screaming in your ears and you find a lighter in his pocket, a big one, and you know things can't get any worse so you just start swinging the lighter around, and the attackers are scared of the light and they kind of skitter back into the corners, and so you start lighting all the hedges and they are burning higher and higher, and you can hear the people skittering in retreat, and you are moving through the maze just burning it all down behind you, and eventually you get out of there, you're fine, and no one seems disturbed that you burned down the maze, or that you've got clumps of bloody hair in your hands and cuts and bitemarks all over your back, and eventually you realize that was the only way out of the maze, and you've raised $25 dollars for charity.

B: ... Was that a dream?

A: No, that's the actual experience of developing in Flash and ActionScript. I actually had a dream about it too, but I'll spare telling you it, it was pretty strange.

on the 201 April 09, 2009

A: ... that happy occurrence when you realize the woman you're oggling out is your wife.

near the PeaPot April 09, 2009

A: You know how everyone always complains about fanboys?

B: What do you mean?

A: You know, like everyone on videogame blog comment sections are like, "Quit being a fanboy, both the PS3 and Xbox 360 have good games, it's just a matter of preference."

B: Oh, ok. Yeah, I guess.

A: You know how everyone is like that?

B: Sure.

A: Then: who are the fanboys?

B: What?

A: If EVERYONE is like that, then there is no one left to actually be fanboys! So there must be exactly ZERO fanboys!

B: Oh, I didn't realize what I was agreeing to, I thought you were using "everyone" colloquially. But you meant it to mean literally everyone.

A: Exactly!

B: Exactly what?

A: Exactly! This is analogous to the ontological argument for the existence of God!

B: ... Oh, I get it. You didn't have to convince me of anything though, I always thought that particular argument was extremely unsatisfying at a gut level, and had major problems at the more kind of philosophical or logical level.

A: Well, I just wanted to drive home that point.

B: Cheers.

in the 4th floor lunch room April 09, 2009

A: Where did you get that machine? Cap'n Weirdo's Computer Emporium?

B: Oh, do you know the Captain?

at the downtown Schlotzky's April 09, 2009

A: I had to uninstall Twitter. All those messages made me physically uncomfortable.

B: Didn't you say the concept of Facebook made you physically uncomfortable?

A: Not the concept, just the way people use it now.

B: And talking to the dude in the office next door? And the cashier woman at Einstein's? And using Windows XP? Those all make you physically uncomfortable, too?

A: Yeah.

B: Do you ever think that you're pretty tightly wound?

A: I guess so.

in my office April 08, 2009

A: I think my first Mac app will be a Task Manager.

B: Oh yeah? Are you going to follow that up with an RSS reader? A Twitter client? I think there is a lot of room for innovation there. No one has written those before. That'll be a great way to spend your time.

at Gerald's April 08, 2009

A: Hey man.

B: ...Hey.

A: How have you been? I heard you wanted to fight me the other night.

B: Oh... yeah. Don't worry about that, I was drunk.

A: I'm not worried about it.

B: Good.

A: What's your problem with me? Did you not like how your girlfriend was talking to me all night? Was that your problem with me?

B: No, no, that wasn't it. We both know you wouldn't have done anything.

A: And why's that?

B: Dude...

A: I wanna know what your problem is with me! I've never done nothing to you!

B: You really want to know?

A: Yeah, motherf&@#er, I do.

B: Ok, look. Honestly, it's every time I look at you. I mean, we're in a college town, we're in Evanston. It's a super-liberal place. And you're still so embarrassed, or your family sucks, or society is so homophobic or something, that you're living this really unhappy life as a closeted homosexual.

A: I'm not gay!

B: And everytime I see you, I get embarrassed for society, and ashamed of the way we treat people, and so I hate to see you.

A: I'm not gay! I'm married!

B: Dude... Come on. It's ok. I don't care you're gay, no one does.

A: I'm not!

in my office March 31, 2009

A: Hey, do you want to go to Bat 17 tonight?

B: Sounds good, but I can't. I think I'm going to be heads-down until the end of the quarter.

A: Didn't the quarter just start yesterday?

B: Yeah. Yeah it did.

waiting for a cab March 26, 2009

A: Wow, that joke "works" on three distinct levels, none of which are the slightest bit funny.

seated at the bar in Bat 17 March 26, 2009

A: What do you do?

B: Oh, not much.

A: But like for your job, that sounds so interesting! What's a normal day like for you?

B: Oh... I come in in the morning and start the coffee brewing. I go through my todo list, and mark some of them as being due that day.

A: ... And then what?

B: Oh.... I go through the things that are due that day. Once they're all done, I go home. It usually takes eight or so hours.

A: Oh. Well that sounds nice. I bet it feels like you're making progress.

B: Does it sound nice? Sorry, I must not have explained it very well.

on the Red Line March 26, 2009

A: Man, I was pissed last night.

B: Why, what happened?

A: It was $1 Old Styles at Bat 17, and I ended up drinking 10 or 12 and stumbling back to the L. I have no idea how I got home, but I woke up in my bed.

B: So, what were you pissed about?

A: Oh, no, sorry. I meant "pissed" like the British do. It means drunk, basically.

B: Why didn't you just say you got drunk then?

A: I thought it was kind of cool.

B: It's not, it's confusing. It's really ambiguous, they're the same parts of speech and everything. Just say you got drunk, don't get clever.

A: Alright, geez. Take it easy, mate.

B: Brilliant.

in line at Jimmy John's March 26, 2009

A: "Alright, I'll see you tonight. ... Love you too, Blue Chair." <Hangs up>

B: Did you just call Beth "Blue Chair?"

A: Yeah.

B: Like a pet name?

A: Yeah. Her original pet name was Pooh Bear

B: Nice.

A: but I got sick of that, and I think she did too. So now I've defined anything that rhymes with "Pooh Bear" to be a valid pet name. So you've got things like "Rue Dare", "Stew Hair", "Flu Scare," you get it.

B: Wow.

A: I like that it's generative, you know? Also, I'm calling it First Order Pet-naming. So you know, it's a little more abstract, a little bit higher-level, than traditional Propositional Pet-naming.

B: Abstraction's important in any kind of intimate relationship.

A: Exactly.

in the office next door March 25, 2009

A: You know how there's that kind of comedy trope where a guy throws open a door, and immediately there's some kind of craziness going on behind the door? And then he slams it shut again, and leans against it, and is like, Shew!

B: Kind of?

A: Like, it will be quiet in a hallway, and Bugs Bunny is being chased by someone, and he'll open a door and start to go into the room, but there's like a bunch of Roman centurions or something having a war in the room, and it's all noisy and everything, so he'll dash back out and slam the door shut, and it will be quiet again in the hallway. And then he'll kind of brace or relax against the door, and wipe his brow, and say Shew!, and then take off running again?

B: Oh, yeah. The kind of joke is that there's no way there's all that craziness going on in the room, or if there were, it would never be that self-contained.

A: Yeah, exactly. It's like as soon as he shuts the door, there's no chance of any of the craziness spilling out.

B: Yeah, yeah. What about it?

A: I feel like Bugs whenever I sign into my Facebook account. There's the Facebook.com landing page and its nice and simple, and then I sign in and throw open the door, and immediately there's all this craziness. I have like four notifications or requests or whatever to join some applications that sounds stupid and feels kind of spammy or scammy or whatever, and I was tagged in some note that wasn't about me, and people are apparently having conversations in my profile or something, and I have like eight friends who are online and apparently willing to chat right then, and I have to back out and close browse and slam the door and try to forget it ever happened.

B: Do you ever get on Twitter?

A: I installed Twitterific, and it immediately showed I had like forty new tweets or something. I think it was just pulling from the log of people I was friends with, and they weren't all actually new tweets, but still. I uninstalled that thing right then and there. The idea of actual software running on my machine that is constantly monitoring the Twittersphere for more things to pop on my screen is, honestly, kind of upsetting.

B: You need to relax, dude.

on the 250 to O'Hare March 24, 2009

A: I saw a trailer for Quantum of Solace yesterday and though about how much I was looking forward to seeing it.

B: I saw it, it was ok. I liked the other one more.

A: That's the thing! I saw it too! In the theatres, I totally saw it. It turns out it's about to come out on DVD, that's why they are showing its trailers.

B: Were you drunk when you saw it?

A: No, I was stone sober. We went to dinner and then saw it. I really think it was just that forgettable. The part where he got on the cellphones at the opera and freaked out all the crooks was cool. But that's the only thing I remember. And they landed in a cave or something?

B: Yeah, they parachuted out of the plane and landed in the cave where the bad guy was draining the water.

A: Yeah! They jumped out of that plane! I totally forgot about that until I saw it in the trailer. And there was a completely incoherent car chase at the beginning.

B: Yeah. That was REALLY hard to follow.

in the hallway March 24, 2009

A: Hey man, long time no see.

B: Yeah, for sure. How's it going?

A: Pretty well, pretty well.

B: What are you working on these days?

A: Oh, I'm going through cleaning up some of my old code, sprinkling literary references throughout the error messages.

B: Really?

A: Yeah, I was able to work in some Idylls of the King when the segment ID isn't found in the database, so I'm pretty happy about that. And the program still prints the last few lines of The Waste Land when it completes successfully, so yeah, I'd say things were going pretty well.

at Old Orchard Mall March 24, 2009

A: It turns out I measure my leisure time almost entirely by how much videogames I play.

B: Really?

A: Yeah. It's kind of weird, really. I have a lot of things I enjoy doing, but if I look back at a period of time and try to determine how relaxing it was, it turns out I measure it exactly by how much time I spent playing videogames.

B: That is strange.

A: Well, sometimes it's bad. Like I just had a really nice weekend, spent some quality time with my parents and everything. But Monday morning, I didn't really feel relaxed, or like I had a restful weekend.

B: But you can kind of game it right?

A: Yeah, that's the nice part. I can work 15 hours over a weekend, and if I spend two hours Saturday night playing Banjo Kazooie, I come into the office on Monday ready to work.

B: Hmm.

sliced under the nearway March 20, 2009

A: ... so I guess, what I'm getting at, is what are your goals?

B: Boy, I'm glad you asked. I'm working really hard on getting the tucked-in, button-up, long sleeve shirt with a tie to replace the button-up, no tie, sports jacket look for the slightly dressed-up tech guy wardrobe.

A: OK. I guess I was thinking more life-wise, like life goals.

B: Yeah, yeah, me too. That's sort of a life goal for me.

on the roof of Bing-Bong's March 20, 2009

A: Life is too short for insincerity, and too long for earnestness.

B: ...

A: What do you think about that?

B: What do you mean?

A: What do you think about what I just said? "Life is too short for insincerity, and too long for earnestness."

B: What do you mean what do I think about it? What do I think about any aphorism? What do I think about "A penny saved is a penny earned?" It's probably true sometimes, and probably not other times. Of course. What else could it be?

A: So you don't agree? You disagree with me?

B: I don't... Look. Look. I mean, sure. People who are just goof-offs are annoying. And painfully earnest people are also annoying. But I wouldn't say, "Life is too short for insincerity" or whatever. That's going too far.

A: So you disagree with that?

B: Why are you picking a fight about this? Who cares?

A: I'm just trying to figure it out. I'm trying to figure out whether you agree or disagree with the saying, "Life is too short for insincerity, and too long for earnestness." I'm just trying to figure it out, I just want to know.

B: I'll say I agree, but it's really just because I want you to drop it, you're being weird. So. Yes, I agree with that statement.

A: Yeah, me too. I thought it seemed like something you would agree with, I knew it.

near Purple on the Square March 20, 2009

A: Do you remember when you were a kid, and you really wanted to go outside and play with the other kids, but your mom made you finish your dinner or something first? And you could just hear your buddies having fun, and you just KNEW that all the fun was going to be had before you got out there, and you could barely sit still long enough to wolf down the rest of your food and rush outside?

B: Eh. No, not really. But I get the idea.

A: ... Ok. Yeah. So.

B: What brought that up?

A: Uh. Nothing really.

B: Right on. Hey, did you see the new iPhone OS 3.0? Looks pretty awesome! With the Bluetooth, and being able to get at the user's library, and embedding the maps and reverse geolocation and everything. People are going to be able to write some pretty cool software I bet. Don't you think so?

A: ... Yeah. Yeah, I saw it. I imagine there is a lot of interesting software you could write with it.

B: Yeah, for sure! Hey, speaking of, how long till you finish grad school?

A: You know. At least a year, hopefully not much more than that.

B: Oh, ok. So you still have a while to go, huh?

A: ... Yeah. Yeah. Still got a while.

one table over at Rock Bottom Brewery March 10, 2009

A: I'm a big believer in domain-specific social hierarchies.

B: What does that mean?

A: Well I've only gone through it for two domains, but I like it a lot so far. I will probably leave the rest of the domains as an exercise for the reader, so to speak.

B: Ok, shoot.

A: The first one is grieving after someone dies. You mentally arrange everyone in a hierarchy with regards to how close they are to the person who died. So if Bill dies, he is the root, his wife and kids may be one step down, the rest of his family and close friends one level below them, etc.

B: Sure. Now do you have to build out this whole tree?

A: No! That's one of the nice features of my model. You only have to resolve where certain people are on the tree in relation to you, and you can do it just-in-time.

B: Ok.

A: So, you apply the hierarchy like this: it's your job to support the grieving of the people in the level above you. That's it!

B: So...

A: So, if Beth's dad were to die, my job would be to support her, her siblings, and her mom in the grieving process, because they're all higher up the hierarchy than me. And it would be YOUR job to support me! I'm not allowed to complain or be mopey around Beth because she's higher up the chain than me.

B: You would expect that anyway, though, right? It would be weird if you were more upset by the death of your father-in-law than your wife is by the death of her father.

A: Yeah, it just kind of formalizes that.

B: Does that need to be formalized?

A: I think the formalization is more necessary in my second domain: complaining about other people. Again, you build the hierarchy of closeness with regards to the person you want to complain about, and then you're not allowed to complain about them with anyone higher up the chain.

B: So you couldn't complain about Beth to me, because you're higher in her hierarchy than I am?

A: Exactly!

B: But if I complained about her to you, you would just tell me to shut up and quit complaining about your wife. It would be weird.

A: ... Yeah.

B: So no one can ever complain about anyone?

A: ... I confused this somehow. In my head, I was allowed to complain about my wife to only my best friends, but I WAS allowed to complain. This all comes out of hearing some dude moan about his wife to a random guy on the L on the way home last night. The whole time I kept thinking, "Shut up. She's your wife, you don't complain about her to strangers."

B: Well, maybe you build a hierarchy centered around yourself, and you are only allowed to complain about people with someone in their level or above in the hierarchy? So you could complain about some random dude in your class with almost anyone, but you could only complain about your wife to your closest friends and family?

A: Yeah, that's it! Thanks.

B: Yeah, no problem. I'm always happy to help transfer ethics into pseudo set theory.

on the Ryan Field Express March 10, 2009

A: I finished reading Macbeth last night, I liked it a lot.

B: Oh yeah?

A: Yeah, that queen is mean!

B: Haha, yeah. You should go see the play sometime. It's good to just read it and everything, but Shakespeare was really meant to be seen HEARD, you know? You haven't really experienced it until you've seen it performed by a really excellent company. I got to see it done at the Shakespeare Festival up in Toronto last summer, and

A: Cut me some slack! I stayed up late last night reading Shakespeare! You're supposed to say something like, "Yeah, I liked it too. Boy oh boy, I'm really impressed you started reading Shakespeare in your spare time." That's it, don't say anything else, just leave it at that.

at Greaser's March 10, 2009

A: I got a bunch of calluses on my hands.

B: You been out digging ditches again? I told you to knock that off.

A: No, that's just it! I didn't get it from any genuine manual labor! I got them from the rowing machine at the gym, believe it or not.

B: Wow, way to bring up how much you go to the gym. Again.

A: I know, sorry, but that's not the point: I didn't get the calluses from any actual work! I got them from the GYM!

B: Yeah, I got it.

A: Doesn't that seem deep somehow?

B: No.

A: It seems emblematic of our times or something. We don't even get calluses from genuine work, we get them from self-imposed work done just to stroke our ego! That seems important somehow.

B: I don't know...

A: It would be like, ... uhh,... it would be like a doctor artificially inseminating his wife! Like if they could've conceived the normal way, but they're doing it artificially! I could've actually gone rowing in the lake, but I didn't! I stayed at the gym! It's symbolic!

B: What is the symbol? You can't just say it's symbolic.

A: It's, you know. A symbol of how things work in modern times.

B: I think you should figure this out more clearly before you bring it up again. First, symbols need to be contextualized. Second, symbols need to MAKE SENSE. I talked with a woman once who was a big Bret Easton Ellis fan, and I guess there is a big moment in Glamorama where the narrator says that no-one in LA ever merges. Like in traffic, they never merge lanes. So, presumably in the story, this is contextualized nicely, and actually resonates with other themes in the book. And, once the woman mentioned the symbolism, I had a pretty good idea what it actually symbolized, because the symbol MADE SENSE. So I assume the point was that people in LA are compartmentalized, they don't interact with others, they're unwilling to slow down even a little bit to let someone in, etc. It's a good symbol. I bet Ellis never went up to his buddies at Greasers and said, "Boy, traffic was a pain getting here, no one let me merge! That strikes me as symbolic. Humm. Hmm."

A: Alright, alright.

at Linz and Vail March 07, 2009

A: You?! You're making fun of me?! I can get the number of girls you've slept with on one hand! Heck, Nightcrawler could count the number of girls you've slept with on one of HIS hands!

B: ... and there it is.

C: Wow. See, I think you were trying to make me sound uncool there. But, you know. The whole Number of Fingers on Nightcrawler's Hands kind of undercuts that. Kind of makes you sound like the uncool one, you know? Do you see that? Referring to X-Men and everything? Do you understand why that makes you the uncool one? Do you get that?

B: Also, not to belabor the point, but how old are you? 24? 25?

A: 26.

B: Yeah, ok. It's probably time to stop saying "sleeping with GIRLS." It's probably time to transition to "sleeping with WOMEN." You know. "Girls" implies a certain age that we're probably not dealing with here, you know? Do you get that? Do you see why that makes you sound like a weirdo?

in the CS Lab March 06, 2009

A: ... he was talking about using useradd, and I was like, "If you're using Ubuntu, and you probably are, you should"

B: Whoa whoa whoa. PROBABLY using Ubuntu?

A: Yeah, I think it's the most popular distro now.

B: Just because it's the most popular doesn't mean he is "probably" using it.

A: Yeah it does.

B: No. Ubuntu has a plurality among Linux distributions, but not a majority. Strictly speaking, he's probably NOT using Ubuntu.

A: Which one is he using then?

B: I don't know, but it's probably not Ubuntu.

A: But we already know he's using one of the distributions. Even if only 40% of the users are on Ubuntu, it's still a larger percentage than is on any other.

B: I agree. That's why you can say, "It is most likely that he is using Ubuntu", but you can NOT say, "He is probably using Ubuntu."

A: "most likely" and "probably" are not technical terms, you can't just pretend they are. Stop being pedantic!

B: I'll stop being pedantic when you start being accurate!

A: It doesn't matter! Forget it! Anyways, I told Mark he should just use adduser, it's a lot easier than useradd.

B: Oh, this was Mark?

A: Yeah.

B: Oh, why didn't you say so? He's definitely on Ubuntu, you were right. "Probably" IS the correct term to use when there is a majority OR you have prior knowledge about the outcome.

A: Still not a technical term, but ok.

in line at Bleu's Bagles March 06, 2009

A: And you actually like it?

B: Honestly, I think I really like how deliberately transgressive it is, you know? It's like, I did it once and I'm free; if society knew, they would all hate me. Nothing I do now matters, I've already done the worst. I don't really believe in hell, you know, but if I did, I would have no doubt I'm going there. It doesn't matter what I do now, there are no more laws to break, I'm completely independent. There's no going back. It's wonderfully freeing.

on the Brown Line March 05, 2009

A (singing quietly to himself): And there she was / Sunk-faced, Sallow-cheeked, and / Sure.

on the tram March 04, 2009

A: It seems like magnets violate conservation of energy.

B: What do you mean?

A: Well, they can pull on things, which I assume is doing Work in some technical sense. But they don't take energy to do it. I know they're not actually violating any conservation rules, but I can't really figure it out.

B: Ok...

A: There's a really neat thing where you tape a magnet like six inches off a desk. And then you tie a paper clip to a five inch long piece of thread and tape the other end of the thread right beneath the magnet. The paperclip will just stay there, like an inch away from the magnet, trying to reach it. It will stay there forever I think.

B: What's the conservation rule that's being violated there?

A: I don't know. I don't know this stuff well, but it seems like an eternally hovering object has to violate something.

B: Maybe the work was done when the magnet was created? Like there was work done separating the charge, and now that work is being put out? So it'd be like batteries, they don't actually generate energy, they just release the energy that was put into them at the factory or whatever. They're not actually just magically generating energy or something.

A: Yeah, I know what you mean, and there must've been some work done separating the charges when the magnet was made originally. But I'm pretty sure it would pull on that paper clip forever, so it seems like it's exerting some small force to suspend the paper clip for an infinite amount of time. So it must be producing energy.

B: Hmmm. Yeah, I don't know. Have you tried looking it up?

A: No, I am trying to figure it out for myself. Like kind of a brain puzzle.

B: Sure.

on the way to the library March 03, 2009

A: I hate when people allude to history or novels when they should really just be using a simile or metaphor.

B: It's obvious you have a specific case in mind, why don't you just start with that?

A: Yeah, I do. I saw a review of Watchmen that described it as "ultimately a tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing." That seems like major overkill.

B: Yeah?

A: Yeah, presumably they mean something like "There's a lot of action, but the story's not very good" or "The story feels like it should be going somewhere, but it doesn't really." Those aren't hard concepts.

B: Yeah. I think the Transformers movie had the same problem.

A: Exactly! A ton of movies have those problems. That's a common problem to have, you can just state the problem. There's no reason to bring in all these other associations that the "sound and fury" allusion brings with it. It's a simple concept! You don't need to bring the greatest English writer and the greatest Southern writer of all time into it! There's no need to allude!

B: Fair enough. It's like if someone is hanged, you don't say they were "lynched" because "lynched" has a lot of historical resonances that aren't necessarily accurate.

A: That's close, but a little different I think. You shouldn't use "sound and fury" because it's overkill, you shouldn't use "lynched" because it's probably not accurate. "Lynched" and "hanged" may technically be synonymous, but in practice, they're not at all.

B: Oh, ok, it's an overkill thing. Like comparing someone to a Nazi when they're actually just a jerk.

A: Kind of, but it's a different kind of overkill. The Nazi thing is just exaggerating and making yourself sound insensitive and immature, while the sound and fury thing is more of a trying-to-make-yourself-sound-smart overkill.

B: So, is it like when someone exaggerates and uses "rape" inappropriately? Like, "Boy, I just get raped by that hard test."

A: Well, that's definitely a bad thing to say, but it's not what I mean exactly. I think that's probably closer to the Nazi example.

B: Wow, you have something REALLY specific in mind when you say you hate it when people make unnecessary allusions.

A: Yeah, I guess I do.

on the Green Line March 01, 2009

A (singing quietly to himself): I said let's be drunk all day / she said no / I said okay.

in THANKSGivin's March 01, 2009

A: Why do gay dudes always have pseudonyms?

B: What?

A: They always choose little names for themselves. Like that Milk guy.

B: Milk was his real name. It's kind of weird for a last name, but it was his name.

A: What about Ru-Paul?

B: He's a cross-dresser. I don't know if he's gay or what exactly is going on there.

A: Elton John.

B: He's a singer, singers have pseudonyms anyway, it doesn't matter that he's gay. Did you really say "gay dudes always have pseudonyms" and not have a single good example?

A: Cher!

at Piccadilly Circus February 24, 2009

A: ...but what's NOT clear to me is why they make Tootsie Roll pops in any flavor besides ROOT BEER! It's ridiculous!

B: I think you mean chocolate.

A: It's root beer, it's the brown one.

B: Yeah, but in Tootsie Roll pops, the brown ones are chocolate. In Dum-Dums, brown is root beer.

A: Are you sure?

B: Yeah, I had one at my niece's birthday party the other day.

A: Oh, ok. Well. It's still the best flavor.

B: What is? Chocolate or root beer?

A: The brown one, whichever one is brown. It doesn't matter.

on television February 23, 2009

A: Mr. Johnson?

B: Please, please, just call me Dr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson was my father.

at the BarNoneCafe February 23, 2009

A: I guess Susan B. Anthony was a really attractive woman.

B: Oh yeah? The woman who made the first flag?

A: No, that's Betsy Ross.

B: That's right.

A: Yeah. Anyways, I guess she was so attractive that people used to call her Susan B. Kicking.

B: As in, "Susan is kicking?"

A: Yeah, kind of a street way of saying it.

B: That's not street, and they used "kicking" as a compliment way back in 1776?

A: It wasn't 1776, it was the 19th century. But yeah, they did use it apparently, because that's what they called her.

B: I don't believe that at all.

A: ...

B: Yes?

A: Yeah, you're totally right. I just made it up.

B: Yeah, no kidding.

on a stool February 21, 2009

A: Do you know where the word "hot" comes from? As in, "That girl is hot"?

B: No, where?

A: I guess it was some kind of Puritan thing. There used to be, and still is I guess, a really strong associated between Hell and fire. An attractive woman is a temptation, and so kind of brings you closer to Hell and Damnation. The Puritans called them "hot" because you were risking fire and Hell by talking to them or interacting with them.

B: Huh, really?

A: Yeah, I guess there used to be a lot of "hot" things. Gambling was considered "hot" for the same reason. And that's actually where the term "fire water" for liquor comes from. It's not from the taste, it's from drinking liquor sending you to Hell.

B: Huh. That's interesting.

A: Yeah, it is. ...

B: What?

A: I made it all up! You gotta stop being so gullible, man. Good grief. You totally fell for that.

in Tech Express February 21, 2009

A: I think at some point in grad school, you really have to internalize the idea that staying late during the week, working on weekends, etc. actually helps you. On a day to day basis, it's hard to look back and think "Wow, staying until 7:30 tonight instead of leaving at 5 allowed me to do X." But I think if you're going to be successful, you have to convince yourself that the extra time does pay off, and then do it.

B: Really?

A: I don't know, maybe. It makes sense, doesn't it?

B: Yeah.

in A Dream February 11, 2009

A: A good rule of thumb is this: Write out your most basic representation on a sheet of paper. If you get bored and quit halfway through, or you write any S-expressions, you're done. You lost. Your system just broke free from its leash and is off running in the woods somewhere. On cloudless nights, when the moon is full, you may hear it howling, but you'll never see it again, you'll never get any work out of it. It's gone for good.

at Shrimps' February 10, 2009

A: I've stopped reading coverage of the stimulus plan.

B: Why? Are you mad at Obama for kowtowing to Republicans?

A: No, not at all. I'm still following it, I'm just not reading the coverage.

B: ?

A: Look, the press's role in this is to keep the Administration honest, right?

B: Yeah, I guess.

A: Well I think that Obama's already honest. He doesn't need anyone to keep him honest.

B: Well, he may be honest, but he obviously has an angle. I like him, too, but he's a politician. He has an agenda, and I don't think he's above representing things in a certain way to make sure his agenda looks the best.

A: Yeah, but the press has an agenda too. I voted for Obama because I like his agenda. As long as its legal, I want him to do whatever it takes to promote it. I didn't vote for the agenda of the editor at the Times. You have to trust somebody, I'm choosing to trust Obama.

B: Yeah. I see where you're coming from. I can't help but think that the Nazi's made similar arguments, though. "We all trust Hitler, right? Why do we need to listen to what anyone else has to say?"

A: I know, it creeps me out a little too.

on the turnbuckle, out past Pistol Pete's February 09, 2009

A: You know I've been going to the gym, right?

B: Yeah. You've told me a few times.

A: Right. Well. I've stopped losing weight, and I miss the satisfaction of weighing myself and seeing the number go down.

B: Why have you stopped losing weight?

A: Well, you know. I've lost most of what I had to lose, I think. Not that I'm in great shape or anything now, but there isn't a whole lot left to get rid of. I'm focusing more now on the weight machines, too.

B: Can you lift more and more each week?

A: Not every week or anything. But yeah, in general, it's going up.

B: You should take satisfaction in that number going up then.

A: You can just do that?

B: Do what?

A: Just change the number you're tacking your satisfaction to?

B: Sure. You're just trying to encourage yourself to go to the gym right? Tell yourself whatever you want.

A: Yeah. I guess.

one car over in a traffic jam near I-95 February 05, 2009

A: How was your dentist appointment?

B: Awful. He said I need like $15,000 worth of stuff done.

A: Heavens.

B: Yeah, all kinds of stuff. It really reminded me of how un-fun money is.

A: I don't think that's a word, but go on.

B: I haven't really studied it or anything, obviously, but it seems like the value of money isn't a continuous function at all, and that takes a lot of the fun and rewardingness out of it.

A: Again, not a word, but ok.

B: Like, if I were going to say, "Ok, I'll save up money to get my teeth fixed." I would have to save over a thousand dollars a month for a year! That's crazy! That is SO much. Or if I said, "Ok, I won't buy any videogames or go to Bat 17 for drinks anymore until I save enough money." I would have to not buy games or skip drinks 250 times to make that much money! That's crazy! 15K is so much higher than these other things, there is no way satisfying way to do Just In Time savings for it. You either have it in your checking account, or you don't.

A: Yeah, it does seem like different tiers. If you were going to avoid dental surgeries to save money for your kid's college fund, you would have to skip 10 major dental surgeries! That's so many!

B: Yeah, exactly! It's an impractical amount! And then on the low end, you would have to skip lunch EVERY DAY at work for a month to buy one night at Bat 17. That is also crazy! And Bat 17 is only like fifty or sixty bucks! It's not like you're going up the Hancock Tower or anything here.

A: I remember when I was a kid, I could save my allowance for three weeks and get a game. It was really satisfying! "Ok, no new action figures for the next few weeks, but then I can get that X-Men game. I should just play with my old action figures, and then I will be able get the game." It was great.

B: Yeah, the tradeoff actually made sense. "No new toys for a few weeks, but then a whole game." Now the tradeoffs are like, "No fun for a whole YEAR, then expensive, painful oral surgery." Whee!

A: I bet this is why people are so bad at saving money.

B: Yeah, I think so

in M-253 February 05, 2009

A: You know how my wife and I take turns driving the car to work?

B: Yeah, I guess so.

A: Well, we've been playing Chicken with how much gas is left in the car.

B: What do you mean?

A: It's been getting lower and lower, but we both keep putting off refilling it, thinking the other person will finally chicken out and refill it.

B: I think that's more like Hot Potato, but whatever. Who won?

A: Well, it finally ran out of gas for her on the way to work yesterday. She had to call Triple-A and everything, and it took like 45 minutes and cost us $50 bucks. She missed a big meeting that morning, her boss yelled at her, and she was in a bad mood all night about it.

B: ...So you won?

A: I guess. It wasn't very satisfying though.

B: Yeah, just sounds kind of sad.

A: Yeah, it was. Don't challenge your loved ones to a game of Chicken like that.

B: Cool. Wasn't going to.

at Yankee-Doodle Randy's February 05, 2009

A: It actually mounts each running application as its own filesystem!

B: ...

A: You can browse the app's UI elements as if they were files!

B: ...

A: This makes them scriptable from the command-line! Think about what you could do!

B: I deeply don't understand what you're telling me.

at Prairie Joe's February 01, 2009

A: I met a girl from Nepal last night, she was cool.

B: Neat. What city was she was from?

A: Uhhh. I thought Nepal was a city?

B: No way, dude, it's a country.

C: Yeah, that's where the Dalai Lama is from.

A: No, no. The Dalai Lama is from Tibet.

C: Yeah, Tibet and Nepal are the same place.

B: No, they're not.

C: Yeah, they seriously are. The people from there call it Nepal, and the Chinese call it Tibet. It's like Burma and Madagascar, or Ceylon and Sri Lanka.

A: It's Burma and Myanmar, not Madagascar.

C: Whatever. Nepal and Tibet are definitely the same place.

A: This girl didn't look like the Dalai Lama.

B: Yeah, she wasn't a bald man, of course not. The Dalai Lama doesn't have an obvious ethnicity anyway.

C: Yeah he does, he looks like Gandhi.

A: You're confusing ethnicity with the role someone plays in society. AGAIN. The Dalai Lama may be the Tibetan Gandhi, but that doesn't mean he looks the same.

B: I think calling the Dalai Lama the "Tibetan Gandhi" is kind of offensive. They're totally different, it shows you have a really reductionist view of other cultures.

C: The "Tibetan Mandela?"

B: That's worse.

A: The "Tibetan King, Jr.?"

B: That's the worse one yet. And it's barely parseable.

C: The "Hindu Jesus?"

B: What? No!

A: Well. I guess we all have a lot to learn about South Asia.

B: I think you two do.

C: Wait, I thought Tibet/Nepal was that island off Africa?

A: No, it's in Asia somewhere.

C: Oh, I was way off, then. Yeah, that place is not the same as Tibet. Sorry, I was thinking of a completely different place.

B: Ye...

C: I was way off.

in the back of O'Houlihans Cutlery January 31, 2009

A: What do you think about this new stimulus plan?

B: What do you mean, what do I think about it? I hope it works.

A: Sure, sure. But do you think it has enough tax cuts vis a vis government spending?

B: How should I know?

A: Well I think it needs more tax cuts.

B: Oh yeah? You read the whole plan, and applied your economics PhD to really mull it over huh?

A: No, but just because I'm not an economist doesn't mean my opinion doesn't matter.

B: Yes it does! The stimulus plan isn't an ethical consideration, where arguably all thoughtful people can have a legitimate opinion! It's a really subtle, complicated thing that people who know about those kinds of things should think about for a long time, and then make a decision. There is no reason for you or I to have any input here at all.

A: Bu...

B: No! It's like going to an accountant to have your taxes done, and then the accountant explaining to you why he's using certain forms! I don't care! I came to you specifically so I wouldn't have to figure out what forms to use! Just use the best one, I don't care!

A: But I saw my congressman on TV, and he...

B: No! Seeing an idiot on TV dumb it down does not mean you're informed! What are you going to do, look at the whole bill? "Based on recently released CDC figures, I think this $900 million to prepare for avian flu seems a little high. I believe that $850 million would be more appropriate." Is that what you're going to say? Is that it? Something like that? Really get in there and twist a few knobs? Tweak it a little? Is that what you're going to do?

A: Geez, you don't have to be a jerk about it.

in the pool January 30, 2009

A: I heard some Republican dude on TV say the stimulus plan needs to have tax breaks for small business, because they are the "engine of the economy."

B: Huh.

A: Yeah, I thought that was weird. Probably overstating it a bit there. Do you know anyone who works in a small business?

B: No, do you?

A: No. I definitely don't know anyone who owns one.

B: Yeah. I wonder if that's significant.

A: Yeah, me too. I know people who have really been hurt by the recession, laid off or whatever, and that seems to legitimately indicate that a lot of people are being hurt.

B: But I have been freezing cold all week, and that does not indicate that global warming isn't happening.

A: Yeah, exactly. I wonder if our experience regarding small businesses are indicative of something larger or not.

B: Yeah, I don't know.

at Serpico's Bar and Grill January 30, 2009

A: I have a new theory about when someone officially becomes an adult.

B: It's not biology-based is it?

A: No, it's one of those kind of more abstract ones. Like when a kid kills a deer or whatever and his dad says, "You're a man now, son."

B: Oh, ok, sure, go on.

A: So my thought is this. I am defining an "excuse" as a false reason you knowingly give for not doing something. I think typically when people give excuses they are embarrassed about it, but it doesn't really matter one way or the other.

B: Ok. But you can also give excuses for why you DID do something. Like you kiss a girl and blame it on being drunk or whatever, when you were actually wanting to kiss her all night.

A: Sure, good point. Either way, I think you become an adult when you stop giving excuses. You either do things or don't, and you take responsibility for it.

B: So, like 1% of the population are adults?

A: Yeah. That part's kind of weird. Besides excluding large numbers of obvious adults, though, I like it a lot.

B: Maybe "not making excuses" should be kind of a goal for adults, but not a requisite for being an adult.

A: Yeah, I thought about that. I don't want to make it too easy, though.

B: Sure. Thinking about it, I did used to make a lot more excuses than I do now, and I think it has kind of steadily decreased. I don't know if I'm down to zero though, yet.

A: Yeah, well you're working on it. I'm not down to zero either. Decreasing is more important than actually hitting zero I think.

B: Yeah, I'm sure.

A: Something to think about.

in a MacDonald's Car Park January 28, 2009

A: You know how Shakespeare had that stage direction, "Exit, pursued by a bear"?

B: Yeah.

A: And you know how in the gay community, big hairy men are referred to as "bears"?

B: Sure.

A: Doesn't it seem like you should be able to make a joke out of that?

B: Like about Shakespeare being gay or something?

A: Yeah, maybe, I don't know. It just seems like you should be able to do something with that.

B: Yeah, it does. I bet Tina Fey could make a joke out of that.

A: Yeah, I'm sure.

B: Sure, will do.

in line at Taco Bell January 27, 2009

A: Did you see Marley and Me?

B: No. So I think the most important thing in life is to figure out what makes YOU happy, you know? And not let society kind of normalize that back to what it wants you to do, what it tells you to do be happy.

A: ... Ok.

B: Like, if you're not interested in making a ton of money, and you just want kind of a normal house and a family and time to spend with them. You should just be happy with that. You don't have to chase money if you're not interested, and you shouldn't let yourself be jealous of other people who have more money or success or whatever. If that doesn't make you happy, then you shouldn't be jealous when other people have it. You can't be jealous of not having what you don't want! It's important!

A: Ok. But... what brought that all up?

B: Nothing, I was just thinking.

A: Hey, you had your high school reunion this past weekend, right? How was that?

B: It was... fine.

at the Souper Salad out past the turnpike January 27, 2009

A: I feel badly saying it, but flaming gay men just bug the heck out of me.

B: Oh, really?

A: Yeah. I don't have a problem with gay people at all. I'm really convinced being gay is biological. For that matter, it doesn't even matter if it's biological or not, I really think I'd be fine with people consciously choosing to be gay.

B: Then what bugs you?

A: I think it's that it seems like such an affectation, you know? There can't be a biological explanation for acting like a flaming dude, there just can't be.

B: Wha...

A: And then I knew a dude that came out of the closet and immediately started kind of lisping and prancing about. It really irritated me for some reason.

B: So, he m...

A: And he started picking on people's clothes all the time, like it was OK to be rude all of a sudden because he was gay now. And, oh man, he started talking about sex ALL THE TIME. I don't think it's inappropriate for me to say that I really don't want to hear about his gay sex, right? I don't want to hear about other people's straight sex!

B: Bu...

A: But then, he was just the one guy. I don't think it's fair to be kind of irritated with all flaming men because that one guy ended up being kind a douchebag. It certainly wouldn't be ok for me to not like all black people because a black guy I knew turned out to be a jerk! That would just make me a racist!

B: Ye...

A: And I don't think it's really that it's an affectation that bothers me. I'm sure being flaming is no more of an affectation than a Midwesterner moving to New York and palling around with a bunch of hipsters; of course he's going to start wearing black, of course he's going to start wearing skinny jeans, of course he's going to start smoking. It's not an affectation, he's just fitting in with his social circle. We all do it. I do it. I don't have a problem with it.

B: S...

A: So I guess flaming gay men bother me for one of the three following reasons. 1) Because it's an affectation and I hate all affectations. This doesn't seem accurate though, because I don't seem to mind other affectations, and it's not clear how much of an affectation it really is. 2) Because I knew one flaming dude pretty well, and he ended up being really rude and annoying for a variety of reasons. This could explain it, but I hope not, because it means I can't separate out the distinction between some-members-of-a-group and all-members-of-a-group. 3) For some other reason.

B: Wow. You really wanted to get that off your chest, huh?

A: Yeah, I guess so. Thanks for listening.

B: Sure, no problem. I'm going to go get some more soup, you want any?

A: No thanks, I'm stuffed.

B: Cool. I'll be right back.

A: Sure, no rush.

in KFC off Highway 1 January 26, 2009

A: Did you hear about that eleven year old matador? I guess he killed like six bulls in one day. Quite a brave young man, huh? A real hero, that one, stabbing animals like that.

B: I thought you were trying to never be sarcastic.

A: I made no claims regarding sardonicism!

B: You know that "sardonic" comes from "of Sardinia," that province in Greece. Weird, huh? Homer linked the people of that area with bitter or scornful laughter, and that's where "sardonic" comes from.

A: ...

B: The fact that I threw some trivia on there doesn't demean your point. We all agree with your gist, that kid is bad and bull-fighting is gross.

A: ...

B: Look, can we just talk about something else? I just wanted to add something to the conversation, but you already made the only real point. So I tossed in some trivia.

A: ...

B: ... It's too bad there wasn't a seventh bull that snuck up behind that kid! And impaled him!

A: I know, right? That would've shown the little creep!

in a bar, near All Saint's Day Avenue January 26, 2009

A: Boy, wouldn't it be weird if you had a little baby, right, like a three-month old, and you put him to sleep in his little bassinet or whatever, and then you went in to check on him, right, like how he was sleeping and all, but he wasn't sleeping! Instead, he was hanging upside down by his little baby feet, just gripping onto the ceiling fan or whatever, and his eyes were glowing! And when you walked in, he turned his head around 180 degrees to look at you! And as you walked around the room, he just kept turning his head to follow you, but he never said anything!

D: <Get up from bar stools, leave.>

E: Dude! What was that story?!

A: It wasn't a story, it was just kind of a hypothetical. You know, just wondering about how weird it would be. Really weird, I would expect.

E: Yeah, I guess.

in a Little Caesar's, just north of the Rio Grande January 25, 2009

A: Haha, call them and tell them you're looking for "Mr. Hugh Jass!"

B: Haha, nice one.

C: No, no, call and ask for "Jacques Strap!"

D: Haha, ok.

E: No, no, call and ask for "\"; DROP TABLE people;"

D: ...

F: Dude, was that a SQL injection attack joke?

E: Yeah! Get it? When that chump types that "name" into his computer, it might delete all the people! Booyah!

D: ...

F: Two things here: First, no-one besides me have any idea what you're talking about. They don't get it, and I get it but realize that it's a completely dumb idea. That's the first thing. Secondly, you can't do attacks like that over the phone! Those kinds of things rely on a computer not having any sense of what a name might actually be like. What, you think the guy on the phone is going to believe that your name has semi-colons in it? That your name is actually three English, non-name words, and it includes a quotation mark? Come on.

E: Well, you'd have to spell it out for him, letter by letter. Then he wouldn't realize that they were actually SQL commands.

F: You can't spell it out and fool him! He's typing in the name! Even if he doesn't know SQL, he'll still know that that's not a name! Names don't have punctuation in them!

E: But, ...

D: Come on, man, we're leaving.

E: Yeah, alright, let me just grab my coat.

F: Wait, wait! I had another one! I was going to say "Tell him your name is this following string of 4,927 hexadecimal characters!" It was going to exploit a JPEG buffer-overflow vulnerability in unpatched versions of Internet Explorer 6.0! Guys? Guys! Wait up!

in the lobby of River West January 23, 2009

A: ... and so it sounds like your oxen died trying to ford the river!

B: What?

C: God, it's an ironic Oregon Trail reference.

A: It's not ironic! I have genuinely fond memories of the Oregon Trail!

C: It's still ironic, you can't sincerely refer to 20 year old computer games in a conversation like that.

B: Actually, I think you can. There is a genuine shared, non-ironic context here. We DID all play Oregon Trail growing up, and we DID all enjoy it. I think referring to it is in-bounds.

C: <leaves>

A: Thanks for the back up, bro! That was shaggadelic! Groovy baby, oh yeah!

B: Woah. Hold on a minute. Just cause I backed you up on that Oregon Trail thing doesn't give you a license to go all neo-ironic.

in the Denver Nuggets locker room January 22, 2009

A: What are you doing?

B: I'm writing a response to this article on the Huffington Post.

A: Still? You've been working on that since right after lunch.

B: I know, but I just found out that Google has a thesaurus feature so I am going through and changing most of the words.

A: Why?

B: I truly believe that this three sentence long post condemning President Obama for having Rev. Warren speak at his inauguration will be the only lasting thing I leave on this Earth. I need to crystallize my intelligence into a perfect response, so there can be no doubt: they will know my intellectual prowess by the length of my words.

in a line at Gamestop January 20, 2009

A: Karen was pissed at me when I didn't have the place cleaned when she got home.

B: What were you doing?

A: Playing videogames. I got distracted.

B: Yeah.

A: It's stupid. Women always say they want a guy with a mind like a child. But then when they get one, surprise surprise, they just complain.

B: I don't think women actually say that.

in a dining room in Evanston January 20, 2009

Pete: Do you think beached whales ever have sex?

B: ... What?

Pete: Do you think beached whales ever have sex? Like a whole "I know this is crazy, but we're beached anyways, we may as well go for it?"

B: No, no way. For a whole variety of reasons.

Pete: That makes sense. But... if I decide to think that sometimes they DO have sex, will you not call me on it? Like at parties and stuff, will you not bring it up?

B: Sure, Pete, sure. That sounds fine.

Pete: Thanks man. I appreciate it.

in a bar, South/Southeast of Puerto Rico, 1996 January 19, 2009

A: Now this may not be very "politically correct", but

B: Whoa, mate! Let me stop you right there!

A: What, why?

B: You were about to say something racist.

A: I was not! I was only going to say that

B: Stop! It's going to be racist, I know it! Whisper it to me, I'll tell you what I think.

A: <whisper>

B: Dude. That is SO racist. You can't say stuff like that, man.

A: ... You know what? Now that I think about it, it was kind of racist.

B: Yeah. Cool it with that stuff. Seriously, it would just bum everybody out.

in a professor's office outside Sandusky, 1948 January 17, 2009

Student: Did you get a chance to read through my paper?

Professor: Yes, I did. It seems clear that you didn't understand what you were writing about until you were halfway through the last paragraph.

Student: Is it that obvious?

in a coffee shop, southest of Ohio January 17, 2009

A: I saw "I'm Not There" last night.

B: Yeah, too bad about that, huh?

A: Yeah. Sitting through it made me realize how useful things like plot, characters, and story arcs can be.

B: Yeah. Otherwise it's just kind of a list of things happening.

A: Yep. It turns out that "a list of things happening" is about as interesting as it sounds.

outside a gym in Seattle January 16, 2009

A: I got stuck with a locker next to a vegan body-builder yesterday. It was awful, he kept going on about his diet and regimen.

B: Oh man, bummer. I can't imagine anyone more insufferable than a vegan body-builder.

A: A vegan body-builder that just saw Waking Life.

C: A vegan body-builder in an open relationship.

D: A vegan body-builder that doesn't own a TV.

on an escalator in Quincy January 14, 2009

A: Why do you always wear those tight jeans?

B: They're in style now.

A: "Being in style" doesn't count as a reason to wear them.

B: Yes it does.

in the lobby of the Hotel du Nord January 14, 2009

Edwin: When I am grey and wizened, my readers will stop me in the street, and beg of me, "Edwin! Edwin! Tell us how you came to cook your Italian Chili Mac! It is sui generis and truly sublime!" And I will reply, "Well, my dear, it is as they say... 'Necessity is the true Mother of Invention!' "

B: Wha-

Edwin: And I will continue, "Stop saying 'sui generis', my dear! I am no lawyer, and I have to look up its definition every time I hear it!"

B: Bu-

Edwin: Then I will say, "Even after repeatedly looking it up, I am still unsure what part of speech it constitutes!"

B: I-

Edwin: And I will grandly finish, "But I am pretty sure you used it wrong just now!"

in a riverboat near Rio de Janeiro January 14, 2009

A: Do I look like Ben Bernanke to you?

B: What?

A: Do you think I look like Ben Bernanke?

B: No, not at all. Why?

A: A man in the restroom asked me if I were Ben Bernanke.

B: Weird. But no, you don't look like him.

A: What a relief! I'd hate to think I looked like Mahatma Gandhi.

B: Wait... what?

A: Ben Bernanke played Gandhi in that Gandhi movie.

B: No, that was Ben Kingsley.

A: Really?

B: Yeah, Ben Bernanke is the Federal finance guy. Ben Kingsley is the actor.

A: Oh, ok. I guess I shouldn't've been so offended then, but I thought he was saying I looked like Gandhi.

B: Wait, did he say you looked like Ben Kingsley and you were correct then and misremembering now? Or did he say you looked like Ben Bernanke and you were mistaken then but remembering correctly now?

A: You know what? I really have no idea.

B: It's ok. If it makes you feel any better, you don't look like either of them.

A: Thanks.

in a computer lab in Zurich January 14, 2009

A: No, Giuseppe! Comments are intended to clarify intent, never vice versa!

on the way to Cydonia January 13, 2009

A: Why do you walk like that?

B: Like what?

A: You swerve all around. You never walk in a straight line, you're always tacking off to the left or right.

B: I like to put myself on a collision courses with other men. One of us has to alter direction so we don't collide, and it's never me.

A: Typically when people express dominance, it's to further some other goal. They don't do it just for the sake of forcing other people to submit.

B: Look, some people have it, and some don't. I don't know what you want me to say here.

at Jinky's Salon January 13, 2009

A: What about you, Paul?

Paul: When I die, I want my tombstone to say: "Paul Touchdown. 1886-3857. He exercised his will."