Feb 2001, 31 entries

I’m OKAY everyone, through a miraculous sequence of events, I dived under one of Amazon’s famous desks made out of a door (best of both worlds, I guess, when it comes to earthquake coverage), waited for the lighing fixtures to stop falling off the ceiling and bookshelves to stop toppling over, then, carefully, without a second thought, ran like a girl down the stairs with the rest of the screaming and crying humans (we’re in a very old building made of brick, that looks like this on a good day). Outside, pieces of the building had fallen off and the ground was covered in large brick pieces. Looking up, near the 11th floor, is a large chunk of the building that’s about to fall off, where the bricks had cracked and a large section of it had slightly separated from the rest of the building. I wish I had a camera, I thought.

Then, locked out of the building, we began to have hopes that we wouldn’t have to work that day (it was only 11am) and soon those dreams came true, since certain engineers would have to check the building for structural integrity. The rub was that my car keys were inside the building and I needed to pick K up at 3 so I needed the keys.

Only 5 people were going to be allowed in the building at a time, to retrieve purses, palm pilots, and cell phones. They would go floor by random floor. My floor, it turned out, 5 hours later, was last. I was late picking K up, and very very hungry. They had given us power bars and chips, but I hadn’t eaten breakfast and the only thing I’d eaten the day before was fries at a pub, since I went straight from work to a friend’s going-away party. Anyway, I was grumpy. 10th and 11th floors were flooded with emergency sprinklers, elevator had broken, but otherwise I expect to be back to work on Friday. We’re not even allowed to dial in from home unless we have a technical emergency. If they want to forcibly stop me from working, I won’t complain.

All told, a fun day.

If only I could articulate how many cool weird plot twists are happening right now. I can safely say that I’m the only one that knows everything crazy that is going on in my life right now. Some people have some clues and facts, but it would take a true detective who knew the password into the secret brain files to know them all. Isn’t that great—the concept of limited knowledge, that every person has a completely different base of operations from which to run their missions? Even when you’re close to someone, it’s only relative, there’s still trenches and valleys between people who’ve known each other for 50 years, and I should know, I’m 110.

Anyway, it’s not that secrets are being kept, but just that there are so many details in this world that it would be impossible (even if you talked as fast as those reporters on tv) to accurately describe the onslaught of details that are streaming down into your brain browser from the philotes and quantum particle time warp holes that surround our heads and arms.

Today there were 89 stairs rather than 90, but don’t let that fool you, because actually, I am of the philosophy that no matter how many you count, the actual number of stairs does not change from day to day (unless someone’s playing an elaborate yet obscure and not really that funny practical joke on me). Let me ask you this. Does your couch change colors depending on what time of day you view it and from what angle? Or does your perception of the color change, but the couch is really the same color all the time. This is a test of the emergency existentialist broadcasting network.

Yo Yo Yo.

Stephen and I met with the guy who’s registered the seattlestories.org domain this weekend. He’s a great guy and I think we’ve found a way to successfully run two sites based on Seattle Stories and without duplication but actually added benefit. It’s great working with people this excited about a non-work project, and even more these people are about as talented as you can find out there. I’m really looking forward to everything we’ve planned out.

Seattle Stories, if all goes well, will be launching this weekend. Amsterdam Stories launched two days ago, and it’s looking very nice. Take a look.

I had a dream the other night about a funeral that was taking place on a waterfall, for a group of people who had taunted the cliff’s edge and had fallen over. We were at the top of the waterfall but the funeral itself was at the bottom. And there were daredevils who were standing at the waterfall’s edge and looking over, then hooting and hollering and giving high fives for their daring accomplishment. Then, one of the daredevils fell over. The programs for the funeral that were on our tables would automatically update to include the newly deceased. And then a new person would dare to look over, do the hooting and high-fiving, and then another person would fall over, and then our programs would be updated, and the funeral would continue. I would love to have this dream analyzed.

That was one troublesome bee. First, it was impossible to find. After an entire afternoon of acting like a busy bee, it came time for me to leave work and all of a sudden it’s AWOL. I look under my little laminated project awards, I look behind the bottle of champagne (left from my previous cubicle inhabitant, but it looks nice). Finally, I looked in the crack where the moveable part of the window stops (this is one of those windows that can be lifted open, hypothetically. at least it could be opened way back in the 1930’s when this building was built and people were not nearly as fearful of falling out of windows that can be opened on the 5th floor). There, bee. Come with me. Let’s go outside. I took a look at him though, and he had a big stinger. And I didn’t have a cup. So, I decided to flick him out of there with a pen. He didn’t move—playing dead that rascal! I trapped him in my empty box of redvines, the kind with a plastic window through which to spy your tasty redvines before eating them. He woke up then. I took him down the hall. I showed him to Lucy, a big black dog, owned by one of the directors. I showed him to my friends. All of a sudden, I had a tool with which to pick up chicks. Better than a puppy. Anyway, I got in the elevator, hit the 1 button, and headed on out. But, when the door to the elevator opened at the bottom floor, and nobody was around, for some reason I placed the redvine box in the center of the elevator, and left him there. Love in an elevator!

There’s a wasp on my windowsill right by where I sit at work. He’s been there for three days, this is the third. I saw him the first day and was surprised, “A Bee? So close to me!?” Yesterday, I pointed the wasp out to my cubicle mate, and we pondered for a bit. Now, I look at him, “What has he been eating?” “I wonder what kind of torment is going through his head as he walks up and down the glass for the 1000th time, wondering, ‘I can see the sky, it’s right there, how come I can’t get to it?’”. Maybe he’s thinking, “Should I sting that guy at his desk?”

What should I do. I have about 5 more hours before I go home for the weekend, and I’m pretty sure he will not survive without some human-intervention. Should I:

1. Capture him in a paper towel, go down 90 steps, and let him go at the ground floor?
   
2. Place a cookie on the sill for him to eat over the weekend and re-evaluate then?
   
3. Ignore in hopes that he’ll figure it out and find a way down the stairwell and out the door on his own?
   
4. Act without waiting for responses from people on this page.
   
5. Forget about the wasp in your windowsill and instead attend to the scorpion in my own eye.
   
6. Wait for better suggestions from the world at large (you).
   

Thanks for helping me sort out my life, friends.

Moby. He is my anti-pop-star. Meaning that he is my super-unhero. He is everything I would love to see you be. Latest proof was his Mtv Crib appearance. You know that show, it usually goes to some rapper’s house, and gives you a tour of their golden chandeliers, their 10 cars, “I’m like a complete car fanatic,” their 10 motorcycles, “I don’t know if you know, but I’m like a complete motorcycle fanatic,” their pool and spa, “Everyone who knows me knows I love to just hang out in the back yard, have a party, invite a few friends over, you know Jerry Seinfield lives down the block, and just hang out, and the jacuzzi is my favorite place to hang out,” their sound-proof underground studio, “And this is my studio, this is where it all happens, I wrote my entire last album down here, and recorded it as well,” and of course, their bedroom, “And this is where it all goes down,” as they jump into their fluffy pillows galore and relive fond memories.

Anyway, I hate the show, but I sometimes watch it. But yesterday, it was Moby’s house, and it was the most beautiful mockery I could’ve possibly imagined. There was no furniture, the walls were bare. He spent a long time talking about his fridgerator that is known to consume as little energy as possible. He showed us his bookshelf, he even said that he’d seen this show before and never noticed a bookshelf, his was a low bookshelf along a bare wall filled with old paperbacks and comic books. He showed us his most prized possession, a signed sketch of Homer Simpson, which he said, if his house burned down and he could save one thing, it would be that framed piece of paper. He showed us some windows. It was basically a normal apartment, with little furniture, and it absolutely everything that the other rappers and 80’s butt-rockers didn’t have. It was beautiful. Maybe you had to see it. Anyway, he’s my first Hall of Mockery inductee. Congratulations, Moby.

The “Page You Made” at amazon, you know, that page that spies on you and watches what items you look at on our site and then recommends new items to you, just got taken up a notch (well, last week, but it’s only recently been on for 100% of people). Now, if you go there and visit a page or two, go to another item page and look in the left hand column—there will be a whole new box filled with up to the last four items you looked at, and then a recommended item based on those recently viewed items. I think it rocks, and so far it’s doing really well. Anyway, just thought I’d mention it. More cool stuff coming soon.

Reviews are coming up at the workplace, and reviews mean raises. So everyone’s pretty excited. And raises are rumored to be big this year. A couple days ago, in a meeting, our VP said they’d be (for our group specifically) between 0% and 40-50%, averaging in the teen%s. Well that narrows it down. What kind of person could get a 50% raise? Either they’re only making 2$ a month, or they’re some super important coding machine. Of course, I’ve calculated in my head exactly how much that would be for me, and wondering if I’d consider myself to have upped one notch in the corporate ladder. Probably. But realistically, even a 10% raise is pretty good.

I was talking to my cubicle-mate about the review process over an Odwalla Superfood drink during a break the other day, and he (coming from Slovakia) said that this kind of thing would never go down in Eastern Europe (where he spent the first 25 years of his life). The idea of reviewing yourself, of actually taking a look at yourself and EVALUATING, is a completely crazy idea over there. What would you see! V. Interesting, I said. And then, of course, I wondered why we have self-evaluations of our work-lives, but not of our real lives? I mean, REAL evaluations of our real lives. I mean documents, and filling out forms, and peer-reviews, etc. What if we all reviewed ourselves, found 5 peers to review us, and as a group determined whether or not each of us is deserving of a “raise” slash “more respect from the brothas.” I am going to write a document (soon) (not immediately) that allows my own self-evaluation, and maybe I’ll even ask a few friends to review me as well, see where my weaknesses are, where room for growth is, what areas I’ve been doing really well in, etc. I suggest you do the same.

A few of you have been using the contact form but not filling in the space for your email address, or filling it in with your name. (ahem, Alex.) If you wrote recently, and are wondering why I haven’t replied yet, please write again. I’m also having outlook problems (like, where it doesn’t even let me open it without crashing) so I apologize if I’ve been unresponderly lately.

There are two birds, now all we need is a stone.

I might not be writing as much as normal for a while for a couple reasons, some to do with some readers that I want to go away (you know who you are, although I haven’t told you), and another has to do with the fact that I’m really excited about seattlestories.net and really should be getting it done as soon as possible so that the world does not have to live without it any longer.

If any of you are up for the htmlchallenge, I will give you screenshot of a particular page in IE, and if you can get the exact same page in Netscape, I will buy you a book or CD off of amazon. Any of you feel particularly proud of your html skills? I’ve solved some hairy ones for amazon (such as the search results page, if you look closely at the source, you’ll see a couple table cells with width=10000, due to some issues with those innocent looking gray lines going down the page 1 pixel each. I think I won a burrito for that. Actually, I won nothing, other than getting to close a long open ticket, but I wanted a burrito.) Anyway, so this problem is similar, in that there are lots of cells with widths of 1 and heights of 1, propped open a bit by blank gifs. Anyway, I know this is thrilling, so email or fill out a form for the screenshot. Pepsi Challenge!

So this is what I’m currently worried about: addictions. What is the nature of an addiction but a blantant report from the heavens that we have NO real free will. Real free will would allow us to set our minds on a task (especially a task as simple as NOT doing something) and succeed at NOT doing it. But no, there are smokers, who cannot stop smoking, lovers, who cannot stop loving, abusers, who cannot stop abusing, whiners, who cannot stop whining, biters, who cannot stop biting, shoppers, who cannot stop shopping, oh where have the flowers gone, gone to Bethlehem. How many programs must an addict go through before he’s no longer an addict. Why doesn’t free will kick in somewhere and allow us to not do what we do not want to do. Are these people weak? Is there lack of motivation? What about the woman on tv with a hole in her throat who tried to stop smoking at age 16, but couldn’t because nicotine is as addictive as cocaine? Is she a victim of the power of the addiction of the weakness of will or both? I actually tend to believe that it’s a lack of will or motivation. There are lots of things I know I could be doing to my own benefit but which I do not do, like eat healthier, or run more, or read more edumacative books, but which I don’t mostly because I don’t feel like I am motivated enough by health and intellegence. What kinds of things are worth doing, and that we are not doing? Tithing to the poor, forgiving old grudges, etc. Let’s do them and prove something. Let’s get hooked on crack and then break the habit. Send that old addiction message on wings back to the heavens. Are you with me? Can I get an A!

Etc. Thanks for those who’ve sent in seattle stories. The submission process will soon be in place. Hold your cats and dogs.

I’m actually quite impressed by andrew’s new profile pages for each diary. For example, this one. You can click on a Thomas Pynchon and see what other diarylanders like that author, and if you click on Bjork you can buy an album from amazon. It looks pretty clean and functional to me, although there were a few mysql errors around. It’s actually a good improvement over the mock profile pages I had made with the People Pages (which none of you probably remember). Of course, in this iteration all the sarcasm and mockery was taken out, therefore losing the point, but that’s okay. Thanks, Liza, for pointing it out.

I like drunkgirl’s account of thursday night. My most vivid memory of the evening for some reason was when we were stopping every car that went buy trying to grab a ride, however, most of the cars were already full with other strangers who had pulled them over asking for a ride. It was a strange winter wonderland, nobody is complaining, in fact it was a celebration.

I’m working on the new site over at seattlestories.net. It is going to be great and wonderful. Already, I’m thinking big, bigger than big, about all the possibilities that a story site based in Seattle could have. If you live in Seattle, please write to me or use this form. I’d like to pre-fill the site with some stories before launch. I wake up full of ideas. Stephen has been helping me too, so this will be one of my more well-written endeavors I believe.

Tomorrow I’m going to church.

Despite celebrating last night the snow and the fact that work would be cancelled no doubt the next day I found myself waking up at the usual hour and looking with sadness at the wet clothes still with snow and then just as I was about to leave, K tromps in with her unsuccessful trip to the workplace and now a full day off work not counting the one she’ll get on monday and me, I still go to the bus, I still get on the bus, I still walk in to work where I read email after email of other collegues staying home, celebrating the snow day most likely, and I lazy with words, lazy with work, falling asleep at the desk, in the bathroom, on the bus.

As I speak drunkgirl and lbj are making their way through the pummelling snow to their respective abodes, unless one decides to have a slumber party at the other’s.

They tricked me. I was only going for a drink. Really. And then they said, well, we’ll get one more drink at Neighbors, a club that tonight is playing 80’s music. An old tradition. I felt like working on my projects instead. I said, “Okay, but as long as I don’t see a single dance move out of either of you.” And so we went. My spelling is impeccable at the moment.

We went, more drinks were ordered, soon, I could not distinguish “dancing” from “jumping” and “skipping around” as they called it. I did not know where to draw the line. Then the Cure came on and I found myself dancing. Many hours later we left the club against my will and had numerous snow-ball fights with passers-by. I told many people, for some reason, that they would die in 30 days. What if they did. Would I feel bad? No, I warned them.

We got a ride in the back of some truck and kisses were exchanged, much to the recipients’ regret when I told them they would die in 30 days. Well, people must learn. Then, more snowball fights. My hands have the fever, they’re warm, but clammy and slightly painful to touch. I don’t know why.

It was fun. My spelling is impeccable. I remember helping one guy who had fallen from too much drink. I consoled him with his girl frined, saying things would be alright, that his parents would forgive him. We asked for tolls in the street as people walked by. Three on one is hardly a challenge, he was destroyed by the time I was done with him. I had no qualms with stuffing snow in his face after I had tackled him and was sitting on top of him. Shower. Warm. Kittens.

Time for bed.

There are 90 stairs. Yeah, throw another one my way, world. I’m ready for ya, yo.

Every day I walk up five flights of stairs, and usually, I try to count the steps. On most days, I take the steps two at a time, and counting becomes tricky because some of the step sections end in odd numbers and so I can either start the next step section counting odd numbers or take only one step the first time and resume counting even numbers. Usually, my trips up are a conglomerate of these two strategies. Regardless, each time I go up, I get a different number of steps. Usually somewhere between 84 and 90 steps, excluding 82 as a possibility. It seems like this degree of variation shouldn’t occur.

Tomorrow, I took the steps one at a time. This technique is not recommended because it significantly reduces the amount of time it takes to ascend the stairs. I remember counting almost all the way to the top, getting close to a final answer to the age old debate. But, not until this morning as I was going up the steps again did I realize that I do not consciously remember reaching the top of the steps and proclaiming a number to myself. Maybe I never did reach the top. And this is some other universe.

There are several distractions along the way: other people taking the stairs, up, or down; the non-soy mocha in my hand non-splashing as I take the steps too fast; at every floor there’s an closed door with a conference room right across the hall, which has large clear windows, and I like to look in these windows and see who’s talking, and imagine what they’re talking about (is that ebay’s CEO in there? are they thinking of another hairbrained tab to launch?) and I think that this may sometimes lead to distracting me from my counting. Today, the distraction was the fact that I did not know how I ever got to the bottom of the stairs yesterday, but since I remember the rest of the day, I will let this small inconsistency slide into the discarded abyss of inconsistencies that plague my day to day life in this coherent land.

If you overhear people talking about another group of people (it doesn’t really matter what group in particular, really), and they start talking about how “They’ll get it in the end, they really will get it in the end,” DO NOT become friends with these people.

If you’re logged in at amazon, you’ll now see “why?” links next to each of the items we’re recommending to you on the gateway and product-line homepages. If you click it, it’ll take you to a page that explains which purchases and ratings have made our super secret algorhythmic goodness think you’ll like that item.