Stone Soup

So I’ve been reminiscing about driver’s ed recently. I don’t know what your driving school experience was, but here’s mine:

I went to “Discount” driving school, an experience that meant my learner car had to be (disclaimer: I am totally not making this up) hot-wired before it would even start (my instructor claimed he lost the keys). It meant I spent a good amount of time driving my instructor on errands to the laundromat where he would meet people outside and inconspicuously trade cash for small paper bags. It meant that when the “check oil” light turned on, my instructor would fill the engine with transmission fluid because it was “cheaper”. It also meant I had to sit in a classroom for a good two weeks of the summer while a dude who looked like he walked out of Miami Vice would lecture us about how cars, being human-hating machines, would take the first opportunity to murder us and all we hold dear should we ever loosen our iron grip over their oily domain.

Regardless of where you went to drivers ed, you probably learned about hand signals. You know, these guys. I mean, where I’m from those suckers were on the god-damn learners permit written exam.

Despite their prominence in the hallowed academic pursuit of transportation law, it only just occurred to me that I have never once used a hand signal while driving. Chances are, neither have you. My driver’s ed instructor never made me use them. Then again, my driver’s ed instructor would look around for cops and tell me to floor it if he couldn’t find any.

If you’ve never used a hand signal while driving, don’t feel bad about it. Ever since the advent of tail-light signals (which we’re required by law to keep in working order as a lurking constable will be so happy to tell you), using hand signals has become an activity reserved solely for cyclists and chumps. Not using hand signals just proves you know what’s up.

Below is a list of possible interpretations other drivers would make if you were to actually use one of those hand signals in the wild:

1. That guy is giving me a friendly wave as thanks for some traffic courtesy. (Probability: 11%)
2. That guys is flipping me the bird, what a motherfucker! (Probability: 89%)

It’s interesting to me that the only two recognized hand signals on the road both correspond to a human emotion (gratitude and anger) while those same hand signals are the only traffic indicators that actually require a human to be inside the vehicle. Maybe they’re working on an electronic “flip the bird” indicator right now, Who knows.

-Alec

Hey look, my partner in crime Ian Lamont wrote up a lengthy blog post about Egg Drop, a game he and I worked on as a class project this past semester. Check it out. 

-Alec

I have a pair of pants that constantly works against me. Dark blue denim. Perfect fit. Walks like a dream. Normally these pants would be the stuff of tasteful LL Bean Magazine ads. Problem is, these pants have made it their chosen mission to destroy me, acting as a constant Newman to my Jerry Seinfeld. Here’s how:

You know that one time you were deeply engaged in a conversation, capturing the stares and looks of everyon involved, believing yourself to be the center of attention solely by your natural traits as a social animal. Eventually, one of your more merciful acquantances gives you a subtle (or possibly not so subtle) hint that you might have a zipper situation to deal with. Now imagine that this process repeats itself ad nauseum for the rest of the day until you’re convinced that you’re actually trapped in one of those cliche anxiety dreams and about to find yourself taking an exam for class you never attended…With your fly down. Imagine a zipper that served little useful purpose by actually being quite susceptible to the laws of gravity. This is what it’s like to wear my stupid Newman pants.

And that’s not the extent of the problem. You know how cartoons would always occassionally pull out the familiar gag where the main character briefly opens his or her wardrobe, revealing multiple copies of the same iconic outfit. Well that’s kinda what my pants drawer looks like, meaning that not only do I have an antagonistic pair of pants, but they’re also completely indistuingishable from the rest of my goddamn pants. Usually my only indicator that I’ve lost a game of laundry roulette is a sudden ominous groinular draft in the morning.

So you might be wondering why the crap I just don’t dispose of my Newman pants. Well, beyond my inability to always follow rational advice, I’m starting to suspect that having an inanimate adversary might actually be pretty beneficial. Keeps me on my toes, you know. If any social situation could result in acute embarrasment, I might be actually developing the kind of alertness and vigilant attention to detail only found in big game hunters.

Or maybe I’m just slowly developing a weird psychological tick where I constantly check my zipper. I’ll let you know how it goes.

-Alec

I remember one time for a class, we were told to partner up to play a couple games of tic-tac-toe on the blackboard for some reason or another. I don’t know what the deal was that day, but somehow I managed to lose the first game. My partner and I laughed it off. “Guess I wasn’t paying attention,” I say. So I pay extra special attention the second game…and lose again. Now my partner isn’t smiling, he’s wondering what the hell is wrong with him. Shit, I’m wondering what the hell is wrong with me. This is still a memory that haunts my darkest nightmares to this very day.

I mean, come on! Beyond a certain point in your life, you simply don’t lose a game of tic-tac-toe. For the most part, you don’t win either unless you’re teaching a toddler how to play. The state-space of the game is so small, you can write out a complete perfect strategy tree by hand. The game is really not so much of a game as it is a teaching exercise in the most basic form of tactics.

To that effect, I can’t think of a greater shame than unintentially losing two games of tic-tac-toe in a row.

Which is why we should make a game of it.

Here are the rules: The base rules of tic-tac-toe remain intact. The purpose of the game is to construct a set of rules or strategies that allow you to win twice in a row. Maybe there’s a time limit for moves, maybe the board is spinning, maybe you’re allowed to do your best to distract your opponent while they’re making their move, maybe you play underwater, maybe you designate a possibly non-neutral ally to make your moves (like a lite version of Diplomacy).

Might be a fun exercise,

-Alec

Check it out, the other night I had a dream where I invented a way to use Microsoft COM components to cure loneliness. It was a huge fucking deal. Suddenly developers from around the globe flocked to COM and made implementations for every platform.

It was a computational wonderland, a summer of electronic love. We had this big “Component Swapping” party at my house, where tons of people showed up and passed around interfaces while modifying each others registries. Eventually the cops showed up to bust the party because they could smell us burning DLLs from outside. The head cop dude told me to empty my pockets but I ended up being clean. Poor sucker didn’t realize that he had to call QueryInteface with the right GUID.

That’s about the point at which I woke up alone and realized that my brain likes to make terrible out-of-date computer jokes while I’m not watching. I wonder what Freud would say to that.

-Alec

Listen dudes,

I have a confession to make. The truth is, I have a small problem, and the problem is this:

I am addicted to notebooks

Now I’m not alone in this. Take a cursory glance of any Starbucks, university common, or bohemian streetcorner and you’re bound to find a few alternative types toting around a moleskine or two (or three!). Now I’ll get back to Moleskines in a second, but for now, I want to talk about the notebook problem in general, which requires me to spill a bit of my embarrasing history.

For a long period of my life, I’ve had a strong desire—if not any sort of strong talent or ability—to be a creative type. I’m not sure what sparked this desire exactly. I think part of it was the notion that authors (or artists or autuers what-have-you) had complete autonomy over the universes they created. I wasn’t exactly tuned in to the idea of editors yet, so I had this vision of creatives as these powerful wizards who weaved worlds and beauty with small flicks of their pens and brushes. Overall, This desire managed to take on many forms over the years.

Initially when I was around five or six, I wanted to be a writer, but soon gave up after determining that being a writer would probably require me to know how to spell or something (most likely the result of a failed parental attempt to get me motivated to learn something).

After that, For the longest time in late elementary school and middle school, I wanted to be a manga artist. Eventually, I tuned that shit down and decided that just being a normal comic book artist would do. Now I know what you’re now thinking, and the answer is yes, I did eventually discover the world of webcomics and make that my de-facto new goal. I was getting better though; for freshmen and sophmore year of high-school I actually maintained a small webcomic that I’m pretty sure only my friends and maybe my parents read (It’s still out there on the web, but the url is something I keep closely guarded next to the true name granted me by the namers at the dawn of the second age).

After the comic lust fizzled a bit, I ping-ponged a bit between writing (after discovering the magic of spell-check) and music. With writing, I at least produced a few interesting (if not decent or “good”) pieces of work. With music, I mainly just fucked around with guitar tablature and floundered through attempts to play my favorite ska songs on the saxophone.

The thing is, whenever I received one of these periodic creative itches, the first thing I would always do was buy a new notebook. I’m not sure what my intention for the notebooks was most of the time. Usually, I’d go to the local CVS (or Woolworths if I happened to be in the UK), pick out the coolest looking notebook, and then spend hours thinking about what clever-ass thing I should write in the blank space where I was supposed to put my name.

After that, I would entertain narcassictic fantasies about historians in the future rejoicing over the discovery of one of my old notebooks, or maybe some wealthy collector paying top dollar at an auction for a collection of my original works, my current notebook included.

Eventually, I would get distracted by some form of media targeted at my demographic, and by the time my next creative itch came calling, the previous notebook (with maybe two or three pages blemished by my crude hand) would either be lost or considered “ruined” by the fact that it contained artifacts from my clearly immature and embarrassing younger self.

So herein lies the notebook curse. Quite a few people like myself strongly desire to be creative types. We see the first step to becoming a creative type as owning a notebook, So we purchase a notebook. Then we grow so concerned that future motherfuckers will be unimpressed by what we decided to write down, that we don’t write anything down.

Now Moleskines (I told you I’d get back to them) really like to exploit this curse. It’s actually their whole marketing strategy. If you’ve ever purchased a Moleskine, you’re probably aware of the little insert it comes with telling of the “history” of the “legendary notebook.” It makes allusions to Leonardo Da Vinci, Ernest Hemingway, and other creative people it might be somewhat bitchin’ to be compared to.

They even exploit the whole writing a “clever” thing with your name that always used to catch me up. Get this, These cheeky fuckers included a blank line for a “reward” should the notebook tragically become separated from it’s owner.

If I were to take a wild guess as to the top five things people write on that pretentious little line (which incidentally, are probably the top five passwords to livejournal accounts), it would be: dreams, cookies, hugs, poems, and “password.” That isn’t to say I’m immune to this shit either. I wrote “yo-yo tricks” on mine. How fucking quirky and special!

But there is hope. Against all odds I’ve held on to my current notebook for over a year now. It totally is more than half-way filled. Hell, a couple of times, I’ve actually opened up that shit and used some of what I wrote down as a reference for something. It’s almost as if I actually rediscovered the original utilitarian purpose of a bound pad of paper!

So is there a secret? Of course, and it’s yours for the low low price of putting up with this post so far.

How to Break the Notebook Curse:

Simple, draw a bunch of penises all over your notebook. No, I’m serious. Phalluses (phalli?) not your thing, go for vaginas, or maybe even mollusk porn, I don’t know. Whatever it takes to make your notebook a wretched hive of scum and villany. Why you ask? Because it’s really time to stop giving any fucks about who’s going to read your notebook. Seriously, stop giving all those fucks. If your ideas are really that special, you can just charge for all the fucks you’re giving right now and make enough money to fund an independent film about category theory or something.

In all seriousness, your notebook is not your final draft. Don’t be afraid to fill it with bullshit. And if you’re uncomfortable with filling a pretty little leather moleskine with table scraps, then throw it away and get the stupidest looking $2 notebook from CVS. Just make sure it isn’t so ugly you’ll be afraid to be seen writing in it in public (eg: a Justin Bieber notebook).

And that’s it. Just stop caring and start creating, and maybe if you’re super awesome, one of those future historians will write an entire chapter in your biography about your facination with drawing cocks everywhere.

Man, all of this reminds me of an idea I had about a year ago for a character (for a novel, game, story, whatever). The character would be an eccentric thief who exclusively stole notebooks off of cafe tables so that the owners could feel as if their ideas were worth stealing. A Robin Hood for the spirit if you will. Needless to say, I wrote that shit down!

-Alec