What I've been up to lately

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_monkey_theorem

"Monkeys Don't Write Shakespeare"
Associated Press
05.09.03

Give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, the theory goes, and they will eventually produce prose the likes of Shakespeare.

Give six monkeys one computer for a month, and they will make a mess.

Researchers at Plymouth University in England reported this week that primates left alone with a computer attacked the machine and failed to produce a single word.

"They pressed a lot of S's," researcher Mike Phillips said Friday. "Obviously, English isn't their first language."

A group of faculty and students in the university's media program left a computer in the monkey enclosure at Paignton Zoo in southwest England, home to six Sulawesi crested macaques. Then, they waited.

At first, said Phillips, "the lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it.

"Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard," added Phillips, who runs the university's Institute of Digital Arts and Technologies.

Eventually, monkeys Elmo, Gum, Heather, Holly, Mistletoe and Rowan produced five pages of text, composed primarily of the letter S. Later, the letters A, J, L and M crept in.

Full article here

Genius!

Newest business idea: A pie company called "Jesus Crust"

Flavors:
-12 Apostle Apple
-Persecution Peach
-Last Supper Lemon Meringue
-Salvation Strawberry (can be combined with Resurrection Rhubarb)
-Pe-can Walk on Water
-Cheese-us of Nazareth (cheesecake)

For Kosher pies, please consult sister bakeshop, Jews for Jesus Crust.

Motto: Son of God-damn are they be delicious!

I dislike my place of employment. This is old news, and saying any more than that will make me what is colloquially considered a "broken record." My dissatisfaction has produced a pretty solid list of alternate career choices I would very much like to pursue. Please consider the following:

1. The third Obama daughter

I would like to be adopted by the First Family. They can change my name, hair, clothes...whatever they want, just as long as I can be their kid. Think of me as the Obama-fied Bridget McCain.

2. Ambassador

I have decided that being an ambassador is the EASIEST job in the universe. You show up, shake hands, say ten words, eat free food, and bounce. Apparently, international diplomacy equals glad-handing and devouring mini egg rolls. In order to achieve this objective, I plan to move to a small country where no one wants to enter civil service, sail through all of the mid-level BS (or pay my way to the top) jobs and quickly get appointed ambassador. Hello, life of luxury.

3. Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor tester

Behold- a career that would allow me to set my favorite foods to the music of frozen milk and sugar. Need I explain my desire for this job any further? Curiously, this job option strikes me as the least-attainable of the three.

I am so glad it took me $200,000 and four years to figure this out. Thanks, college!

this is why I don't have a twitter account

Hi. I'm alive. Mostly.

I guess I can ascribe the lack of updates to a complete and total lack of change in my life. Some people assume I never write because I am just too darn busy. Not so. It is merely a symptom of stunted development and absence of forward motion, an object at rest staying very much at rest.

That being said, everything is still the same. Spring is here. All these April showers better produce some huge goddamn May flowers. I've been listening to lots of new music, more specifically Rumspringa (after seeing them play live..pretty darn good) and Shilpa Ray (seeing her live this week...bitch slams that harmonium!) to name a few. Booked my trip to Europe today. I'm going to Geneva and Paris, neither of which I have seen before. If you read this and have a suggestion about what I should see, please leave a comment or email me! I have dubbed the trip "Tour de Fatass" as I am going to try to consume as much cheese and as many pastries as possible (this includes my plan to make a brie sandwich using eclairs instead of bread, with nutella instead of mustard). My ass is growing in anticipation!

That's about all she wrote. Consider yourself caught up on my life.

sigh.

Well...goddamn.

Here's a somewhat embarrassing note on my past: I resisted getting my eyebrows waxed for longer than appropriate. I don't know what my problem was (subliminal love for Frida Kahlo?), but crossing that threshold happened none too soon in the life and times of me. Ever since, I have been very, very particular about who touches them (wish I could say the same about some other parts). I've had them return to their natural state several times based on my insistence on them being in the right hands. you get it- I am, as the young folks say these days, a "pain in the ass." I would do it myself, but delicate maneuvers requiring nimble fingers and a gentle touch are not my strong suit (ask me about the time I superglued my fingers to my desk!). Add to this my terrible sense of symmetry and I emerge from the bathroom looking a little less like Kahlo and a little more like a Picasso. Hence, I always seek trusted professional guidance.

Which brings me to today, working from home and in desperate need of some eyebrow assistance. Against all better judgement, I decided to try out the nail salon near my house. It's cheap beyond belief and their manicures aren't that bad. Suck it up, self, I said. You need to let go a little- they're just eyebrows!

Things I am never doing again for $200, Alex.

I look absurd. Actually, no. I look surprised! Like I should end! All of my sentences! With this! You should also know that whenever I get upset, one of my many go-to tricks is to stand in front of the mirror, wailing that MY FACE IS LOPSIDED! Tears are usually involved and eventually I call Mom, who always knows just what to say to calm me down- "It's because your face was smashed against the uterine wall for all nine months. Then the doctors had to clamp the forceps on your face, which is why one eye is smaller than the other."

So, now you know. Your choices are either to avoid me for the next month or to throw me a party. I promise to look surprised.

A note of thanks

So much for my blogging idealism. After spending 8+ hours sitting in front of a computer at work, coming home and turning on my computer to blog is a thoroughly unappealing option. Thus, daily blogging has been a total failure.

Moving on, I am so goddamn happy this week has finally ended. Oy vey. Concurrent career, social, and financial dissatisfaction all lead to one bad mood. When working in tandem with the forces of time, days stretch to near-impossible lengths. My natural inclination when dealing with stresses such as these is to call my parents. Not only are they sympathetic ears, but I can be my unapologetically bitchy self without having to worry that I won't be invited to their birthday parties. My comically deficient self-edit feature is completely gone whenever we speak, something I should probably apologize for more often than I do (never). So thanks for listening Mom and Dad, even when you'd rather be doing anything else, like cleaning the pool filter or rearranging boxes in the garage. I'm really trying to reduce the frequency of my hysterical phone calls to you , with a long term goal of cutting them to two per week by the time I am 30.

See? This is another problem with blogging more than, oh, once a month- I have nothing to say. I could tell you all about my plans for the rest of this weekend, but who cares? Not me!

(cr)ash wednesday

I said I would start blogging for a week yesterday, and then didn't (pouting and ruminating is a better use of my time). So, it starts today.

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, a fact I completely omitted from my consciousness until I realized the improbability of so many people having the exact same birthmark (in the shape of a cross, no less). I briefly considered popping in a church I pass on my way to work out of sheer curiosity, but decided to forgo a reminder of man's mortality for a tall latte at Starbucks. However, this particular church had a large purple "Ashes! Ashes! Ashes!" banner outside, a very jazzy touch and certainly an enticing way to attract repentant souls. Plus, being Jewish and all, I probably would have felt a little strange about the whole outfit.

Not much else to report, other than the collective misery of my entire social circle, myself included. I got another rejection letter for a job I thought I would be perfect for. Then again, I think I would be perfect for any job other than the one I have. More to come tomorrow!

FYI

Starting tomorrow, I am going to blog every day for an entire week. Why? Well, for starters I have nothing better to do. Also, I think that by announcing my goal, I will be less likely to shy away from this task. Or more guilty when I don't follow through. Talk to you then!

Avoided Connections

I love reading the "Missed Connections" on craigslist, but always wonder why no one ever seems to be looking for me. Enter my a-ha! moment for today:

People generally don't want to connect with angry girls who scream "Watch where you're going, shitbag!" at them on their way to work.

I don't!

Now that I know for a fact that my mother reads this, I feel like I should address a subject near and dear to her heart: marriage. Not hers, of course, but rather my own future as Mrs. Gainfully Employed Jewish Doctor/Lawyer With No Family History of Mental Illness. The topic was broached while I was home over the holidays, albeit unintentionally. It did not go well.

It started with a phone call. Normally I dodge answering the phone like Bush dodges shoes, but because no one else was home at the time, I decided to accept the terrible burden of being polite and picked up. On the other end was an old family friend, looking to speak with my father about poker or lawn care or whatever it is men talk about. I have neither seen nor spoken to this man in at least ten years, and it was admittedly nice to speak with him again.

I should take a moment to mention that, like my Dear Father, Fred is from Iran. This is not his real name, either, but rather the American version of his given name. It appears to me that most Persian men adapted their names when they moved to the U.S. of A. That's how I ended up with an Uncle Tony, an Uncle Jim, and even an Uncle Sam. Nomenclature aside, their values can best be described by the almighty t-word: traditional.

My conversation with Fred was off to a normal enough start, the exchanging of pleasantries and such, but came to a grinding halt in roughly two minutes. "So you are in New York! You must love it! Have you found a nice man yet?" he asked. I gave him the standard Single Girl in Manhattan answer, telling him that yes, I do love the city, and while I haven't met Mr. Right, I am "having a really good time with my friends." After feeding him this line from my personal stash of lies, all I heard was the sharp intake of a disapproving breath. "Oh noooooo," he said, infusing his words with misery cultivated by membership to a tribe whose priority numero uno is to be fruitful and multiply. The words that followed will haunt me forever:

"But, you are getting so old..."

He proceeded to tell me why I should get married, and what will happen if I do not get married soon. Apparently, I have the shelf life (and appeal) of a bag of Doritos. Sure, I'm reasonably fresh now, but in two years I will be particularly stale and undesirable, wanted only by those who are willing to settle for expired product.

I began to grow impatient listening to Miss Cleo predict my apparent future as a lonely hag and quickly hustled him off the phone. Thanks for your input, sir. Speak to you in a decade or so. Still shocked by Fred's unapologetic dressing-down of my personal life, I called my dad, partly to deliver the message before my goldfish-like memory moved on, and partly to rant about the utter absurdity of this man's insinuations. How dare he!

"Dad," I said, "you will never guess what Fred just said to me! He thinks I am getting too old and need to start seriously thinking about getting married! Insane, right?"

My father, tapping into his infinite supply of support for his little girl, was silent.

"Well," he said eventually, "he has a point. You should be thinking about these things and..." Another premature halt to another prehistoric conversation. Who are these people? Hey boys, the 18th century called- they want their values back.

Or...am I actually getting old? Do I need to get married, like, now? Thanks to Dad and his friend, I might as well turn into an old Chrysler Le Baron on my 24th birthday- functional, yet not the best looking ride in town. Why am I even wasting my time writing about this? I should be using this time to join JDate!

There's not a lot to say about this little exchange, except that it's been two weeks, and I am still thinking about it. My subconscious must have been bothered, though, or else my aforementioned memory issue would have allowed me to continue to move freely about my mental cabin. I suppose my rational half let go of the conversation almost immediately, made a sandwich, and read some essays by hero single Jewess (O.B.M.) Wendy Wasserstein.

The other, less-rational half of me interrupted this post halfway through in order to select a Tiffany & Co. platinum solitaire round brilliant cut diamond engagement ring.