• “F*** Bush”
• “Republicans are Greedy”
• “Cops are Pigs”
• “End the War”
• “Rich People are Bad”

Most graffiti I see that attempts a political assertion takes one of these angles.  Why not any of the opposites?

Where’s the “Barack Has No Experience” graffiti?  How come nobody is writing “Stop Welfare Entitlements”?  I have 3 increasingly likely theories:

1. Geography: People in the Seattle area just don’t hold these beliefs as frequently.
2. Timing: Republicans are in power, so non-Republicans have more beefs with the status quo.
3. Self-Selection: People who agree with the things written on bathroom walls tend to be people more likely to write on bathroom walls.

What do you think?  Agree with any of these theories?  Got your own?
As a special treat, here is my favorite bathroom graffiti to-date; I found it on the wall in the men’s room of the Edmonds Theater:

This will be one of those effective times, I can feel it.  Let’s begin.

First, I’ll direct you to a passage from Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon.  This is a dialogue taking place between the characters of Enoch Root and Randy Waterhouse.  Root speaks first.

“When I phoned you the other day, how did you know it was me?”

“I don’t know. I just recognized you.”

“Recognized me? What does that mean? You didn’t recognize my voice.”

“Is this some roundabout way of answering my question about Athena worship v. Christianity?”

“Doesn’t it strike you as remarkable that you can look at a stream of characters on the screen of your computer–e-mail from someone you’ve never seen–and later ‘recognize’ the same person on the phone? How does that work, Randy?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. The brain can do some weird–”

“Some complain that e-mail is impersonal–that your contact with me, during the e-mail phase of our relationship, was mediated by wires and screens and cables. Some would say that’s not as good as conversing face-to-face. And yet our seeing of things is always mediated by corneas, retinas, optic nerves, and some neural machinery that takes the information from the optic nerve and propagates it into our minds. So, is looking at words on a screen so very much inferior? I think not; at least then you are conscious of the distortions. Whereas, when you see someone with your eyes, you forget about the distortions and imagine you are experiencing them purely and immediately.”

“So what’s your explanation of how I recognized you?”

“I would argue that inside your mind was some pattern of neurological activity that was not there before you exchanged e-mail with me. The Root Representation. It is not me. I’m this big slug of carbon and oxygen and some other stuff on this cot right next to you. The Root Rep, by contrast, is the thing that you’ll carry around in your brain for the rest of your life, barring some kind of major neurological insult, that your mind uses to represent me. When you think about me, in other words, you’re not thinking about me qua this big slug of carbon, you are thinking about the Root Rep. Indeed, some day you might get released from jail and run into someone who would say, ‘You know, I was in the Philippines once, running around in the boondocks, and I ran into this old fart who started talking to me about Root Reps.’ And by exchanging notes (as it were) with this fellow you would be able to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the Root Rep in your brain and the Root Rep in his brain were generated by the same actual slug of carbon and oxygen and so on: me.”

I really like this idea.  All of our interactions with another person provide information that is used to form a representation of them in our heads.  If you and I get coffee, or hit a pub, we’ll have some high-bandwidth communication.  You’re seeing me, hearing my voice and my laugh.  But time is scarce, so you and I can’t always be interacting face-to-face.

Then there’s e-mail and blogging.  Interactions lower in bandwidth, but still lending themselves to long-form communication.  As in the story excerpt above, even an email exchange can be enough to form a representation of the author in the reader’s mind.  It just won’t be a complete picture.  Have you ever read a book, then heard the author read it at an event and been surprised by their voice?

I see Twitter as similar to e-mail and blogging (but also different).  Let me explain… no, there is too much.  Let me sum up…

Twitter is a way to provide frequent low-bandwidth data points that help to maintain an accurate “Tom Rep” in your brain.  Reading as other people tweet helps to do the same of them in my own brain.  It can get irksome when one person’s data points are so frequent that it causes others to be missed, but this threshold is pretty high for me.  By using Twitter well, we can keep mental representations of ourselves fresh and accurate.

Which will have to suffice until we’re talking over pints again.

On Saturday I took stock of my current list of hobbies, passions, and goals. I’ve been neglecting many of them for far too long. The result of this reflection was a schedule for the next week.

It’s a prototype of a large systemic change. And it’s exciting (to me)!

I start the day by waking up early to exercise and make coffee before getting cleaned up and ready for work. We bought a french press, and I enjoy doing science to it. So there’s that.

• Studying for the GMAT is scheduled.
• Taking the GMAT is scheduled.
• Web design is planned.
• Piano, voice, guitar, and harmonica are sorted.
• Heck, even blogging is arranged.

Other goals (making ties, painting, etc) will filter in and out.

I love the metaphor of plans as gears, and this is a lot of gears working in concert. I am pleased as pi.

Another thing in-flight magazines present is a good visual jam session. They provide some graphics and words, and it’s up to you to make them into something more interesting. This is their intention. It would be rude not to participate.

I recently found these fine examples while cleaning:

 

This one really needs to be opened full-size to get the entire effect:

Get flying, and get to work. Then share your creativity with the world, and with me!

As the dinner wound to a close, Sean told us that some of his friends had recommended visiting the Whirlyball place that was (sorta) nearby. It took him awhile to describe it (since he had never been there himself) and we decided that it sounded darn cool enough that we should at least check it out.

Oh man.

It’s basically like basketball-flavoured lacrosse, played in souped-up bumper cars.

I heartily recommend that you go. And call me before you do, so I can come along!

He’s not really a homeowner per se, but it sounded right and I thought I would talk him up so his friends thought he was cool.

Here’s a direct link to the video.

Long long ago (Thanksgiving-ish) I was at the grocery store and I happened past the shelf with all of the coloring books. Human brains, bless their hearts, love to arrange things into patterns. As I skipped over the books my mind arranged the heck out of the books in my peripheral vision. But something stood out. Something was disrupting the order! I turned my eagle eyes in the direction of the offending tome, and spotted this grisly scene:

One of these things is not like the others,
one of these things is not the same…

A musical duo that I would place within my top echelon of favorites is the brilliant Rodrigo y Gabriela. I first heard of them over a year ago via the blog of another former Amazonian, and have missed them the last few times they were in Seattle. When Jana an I heard they were going to be back we got our tickets early. We were not going to miss it this time!

AMAZING

Something you might not know: for the last two years Jana has volunteered with United Way’s Earned Income Tax Credit tax preparation volunteer service corps team platoon division cadre. And each year I have accompanied her to the celebratory dinner at the end. Well, this year we’re both doing it!This program provides free tax preparation services to people, specializing in helping people take advantage of large tax benefits that the government has allocated for lower income families. While I am sometimes kinda stingy when it comes to welfare, the idea of earned income tax credits makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Here’s the big huge book we’re using for training:

Tax prep is radical!

Rounding out this wrap-up is none other than the Vancouver-based sensation: The Clumsy Lovers! This is one of Jana’s absolute favorite bands, and it was one of the first acts we saw together. These folks always seem to have a good time on stage, and their celtic-folk-gospel-rock sound ensures that the audience will too. They started late at night, and we didn’t get to sleep until 2:30 or 3:00am, but it was completely worth it. They are in Seattle pretty often… look’s like the next Seattle shows are March 15 at Fado and May 4th at the Tractor. Do it!

Here’s a link to one of my favorite Clumsy Lovers songs.

That’s all from me for now. See any good concerts recently?

It went out just before 9:55 last night.

NOTE TO SELF: The recording of 30 Rock will be cut off too early.

I awoke more than once to screams of tree branches being ripped from their homes, and cast upon the roof of my apartment. Their suffering cries were deafening! We need to end tree branch suffrage immediately.

War-torn Downtown Edmonds is such an odd sight; driving down Main I noticed that the south side of the street was fully powered, and the north side was not.

Now I am sitting in one of two open coffee shops (the other is a Starbucks, and was packed). The power outlet doesn’t work and there’s no wi-fi, but I got some breakfast and that’s good enough for now. In a little bit I will go and try the Library.

Scratch that. Washington State Ferries Wi-Fi!

How you doin’?

For those of you for whom this doesn’t work, try this.

NOTE: I actually wrote and recorded this last night right after the power went out. I got the video uploaded via an insecure “linksys” connection, and and just before I hit the “Publish” button (on this fantastic ecto blogging client) I saw a couple of flashes outside my window. I went to investigate, and suddenly the insecure wireless networks (as well as the two secured networks keeping it company) had disappeared!

Either they were all on UPSes with the same discharge time, or those flashes were more people losing juice!