Satisficing for Success

Today, I had the rare fortunate break of running into an attractive (presumably single) woman that I met at a party last weekend. On the campus of a large research university, the opportunity to have iterated social encounters with anyone outside of your department and still on the "acquaintance" level is really difficult. Grateful for the opportunity, I of course tried my hardest to convey my personality and friendliness as best I could. Of course, I probably was trying a bit too hard, as I began to stutter as my mind worked feverishly to improve every thought I was expressing, trying to make it funnier, more vivid, more creative and so forth. All of the quality control on the fly ended up harming, as opposed to helping things. On the bright side, there was a subtle market signal that the woman might be a head-case, so perhaps screwing up isn't the end of the world with this one.

The moral of the story seems to be that if you really want something, you have to convince yourself that you don't really want it so you can act accordingly. Unfortunately, the emotions of humans tend to be imperfectly and partially controlled by the rational mind. So, you get stuck with feelings and dispositions you don't really want...

You don't need rock & roll to 'rock'

I went to a violin concert the other day by some virtuouso (my friend is a classical musician, so she told me how incredible the opportunity to watch this person play, so I took her word for it), and was totally blown away. First, I kind of giggled at the notion that someone as uncultured as me (I think the Pixies were the highest-brow band I ever listened to) partaking in classical music, but as it turns out, the concert involved all of the intensity and passion of any rock concert, with even more astounding virtuosity that even the likes of Eddie Van Halen brought to the masses. The performance was absolutely vicious with her violin, yet the sounds were mellifluous and flowing. As my friend mentioned during the encore "it's so ironic that something that sounds so cheerful and fast is so painfully difficult to play." Now, apparently she's making me a CD to explore if this classical music thing is something I'll really get hooked on. I'm horribly unhip and have stopped listening to music in the early 21st Century, so perhaps I need to look back a couple of centuries to get some fresh melodies flowing in my head....

The Golden Age is Over

As a devoted youtube user, I've noticed that many of my favorite clips (mostly bootlegs of rock bands that I enjoy) are no longer available. The same goes for the much beloved cache of Beavis and Butthead episodes that were wonderful diversions in the middle of otherwise productive days for myself and colleagues alike (MTV manages to retroactively suck by taking out B & B and music/concert programming from when it was actually occasionally good). In a huge oversimplification, I will simply state that the profit motive managed to appropriate this wonderful public resource, and now via Google video, I now have to purchase those formerly free episodes for $1.99 (my beloved clip of the Pixies appearance on 120 Minutes has yet to be catalogued and priced, I suppose).

Anyhow, this is all turning out like Napster did. There was this golden age where you could find just about anything and everything your heart desired, no matter how obscure. Alas, I guess one does not get money for nothing and clips for free in the 2000's. *sigh*

As a consolation, enjoy this fantastic R.E.M. performance on Letterman in the early 1980's that CBS hasn't gotten its grubby hands on yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA57Pafq_NU

Going 'Deflem' on Fuchs-Epstein

Sociologists embarrass me sometimes. I just received a pretentious letter from past ASA president Cynthia Fuchs-Epstein personally inviting me to spend more than a quarter of my yearly stipend for what appears to be an utterly pointless and self-congratulatory quasi-"public sociology" endeavor to India in the middle of the upcoming November.

This wouldn't be so irksome if the form letter wasn't littered with bullshit intended to make the recipient feel special. The letter writes "Invitations for this project are being sent only to select members of the American Sociological Association" and "I believe you would contribute valued expertise to the mission[.]" Considering I've never met Ms. Fuchs-Epstein in my life, and I have nary a publication in my young career for her to know me from (further, little does she know that I have no "expertise"), this strikes me as a bit insincere. Somehow I think having a pulse and/or being on the ASA mailing list were the lofty benchmarks chosen to help select the fortunate "chosen invites." The "Immediate Past President" may be mad with power and going wild with the ASA mailing list.

Better yet, the letter promises forthcoming missives with additional sign-up information (does signing up for ASA membership entitle you to this kind of wonderful unsolicited sociological junkmail? I'm so glad I checked whatever the relevant box was that ensured I received stuff like this). Needless to say, I'm going to save the 39 cents on the stamp to mail my RSVP that I will regretfully decline participation on this trip.

However, if I had $4995.00 plus bus fare to Newark, NJ, I'd be much more inclined to donate that money directly to the many poor people in India than use it to help bad sociology diffuse between the upper-middle-classes in both societies.

AutoComplete is Evil

Internet Explorer has a well-meaning feature called Auto-Complete that summons similar words and phrases you've recently typed, with the idea that it might save you a few seconds of time by letting you scroll down, hit return and get the entire phrase. However, it has the unintended consequence of immortalizing things you've typed that you'd rather not see again, and I'm not just talking about the time that I accidentally typed in an incorrect email address, which then became my "default" every time I typed in the first few letters of my login. I'm not even thinking of the time that I saw "Anna Nicole Smith naked" on my Uncle's laptop when I was visiting last year and Googling something starting with 'A.'

Today, as I was googling something starting with 's' on one of the communal grad student computers today, AutoCorrect brought up the usual suspects (and I'm paraphrasing here), and then something scandalous and/or disconcerting.

sociology survey research
sociology survey gender research
sociology survey campus attitudes
std test

After cringing and feeling a bit uncomfortable to have seen that, I couldn't resist speculating as to who would be googling 'std test' in my department. Based on the other terms on the AutoCorrect (which certainly could have been written by anyone, although I think the AutoCorrect on those computers gets cleared regularly), I'm pretty sure that it's one of the female "gender conformists" in my department (well, a specific one of them). I'm no expert when it comes to people, love or relationships, but I have a hunch that if you aren't responsible enough to do "better than frat boy" with casual intimate relationships (or at least invest a few bucks in some Trojans), you're also prone to be googling 'std test' on public computers. I hope it was an "innocuous googling", and I can't be totally sure the person I think queried it is who I think it is. Regardless, I didn't think graduate students were the type of people that have to learn with backwards induction based on experience with these types of things...

No, I'm not dead...

....I've just lived an especially boring life lately. I'll be chock-full of scintillating content soon. Until then, visit Jeremy's blog for scandalous blog content.

Fair Trade

I will gladly take the cold of winter (and the concomitant colds it's brought upon myself and many of my colleagues and neighbors), in exchange for not being woken up at 6AM by birds doing loud mating calls, thinking it's spring already, as was occurring before the cold snap hit the continent. Further, getting somewhere between a quarter and a half of winter (depending on how long the cold snap last) is a reassuring omen that global warming might take an extra few years before really messing up the world's ecosystem.

Places You Don't Want to Be

A colleague of mine set up a "working group" on a topic germane to my dissertation. This fellow is question is pleasant enough, but is one of those "massive try-hard" types that are always desperately trying to come across as "intellectual." He also decided that he'd circumscribe invites to this working group so only four people showed up (two of which being half-interested faculty who had to leave early), and thus I couldn't skip out on it with a clear conscience, since I've been hounded about this all-important working group for months, although I would have much rather had those two hours to actually do work today. To compound the pointless of the scenario, the ringleader in question decided he'd present work that I had seen presented twice before (as had two of the other three attendees, since they were on his M.A. committee when he wrote this paper). One of my many personality flaws is that I don't do a good job of concealing my emotions. I do my best to be extremely polite, but my face can never lie, and I felt myself slipping and staring at the window in agitated boredom, and I stopped listening or contributing to the dialogue (which was bad, since there were only three people, including the presenter, in the room by them). I knew it was rude, but I guess I'm a weak man at times...

Afterwards, stressed out from two hours of impulse control of having to sit in a room with boring conversations (which I knew was going to be boring and pointless before hand, which made me angry, since I'm roped in with this annoying colleague, and his selfishness/obliviousness led him to create this stupid working group in the first place), I ended up having a massive binge at the downstairs vending machine. I got some sort of Cherry Blasters-esque product, some disgusting plain potato chips (which I still finished 90% of) and a Rice Krispie Square. I guess being an adult (especially a graduate student) is all about having tons of freedom with your time and such, so part of the reason why I felt so irritated is that I was obliged to waste my afternoon doing something I had no desire to do (incidentally, this was the biggest reason why I loathed going to Church as a kid).

Worst of all, I got guilt-tripped into giving a presentation to this stupid group, despite the fact that two of my committee members (50% of the membership) will be reading that presentation as a part of my prospectus at the exact same time. Despite this fact, it was the only alternative for "keeping the group going", and I couldn't squelch any well-meaning academic/collegial endeavor in front of people who will one day write me reference letters.

Much like a wild animal rendered defenseless after years of captivity, I wonder if academia has turned me soft. Most working people have to endure far worse indiginities, impulse control and overall boring-ness in their jobs, and I bet they handle it better than I do at this stage of my life. I thought those ten/twelve hour shifts dishwashing as an undergraduate would make every subsequent job or endeavor I had in life seem wonderful. Perhaps that's worn off...

"Authoritarian Niceness"

I was held captive in one of those three-hour brainstorming sessions for the student government today that was chaired by an external facilitator that somebody sprang for. It was relatively bearable, but it made me think of an old column by a hilariously chauvanistic and cantankerous male columnist for the New York Post-esque paper in my old home town, worrying that the world had been "wussied up" because arbitrators were being replaced by touchy-feely feminine facilitators. Chauvinism aside, I'm not sure there's much of a difference. Facilitators still boss you around, but do so in much more verbose ways with a rhetoric of wide-eyed openness (e.g., "Okay, so you are all going to explore and brainstorm in the small groups we will assemble, and you will not laugh or snicker at any idea if it is too fanciful and unrealistic, and when the prescribed time period has elapsed, we will reconvene and list all of the ideas that we, collectively, as a group have decided are of greatest importance). I suppose it gives people warm feelings inside to be talked to like they're in preschool again, but the message and directives are the same, regardless of the cultural frames that transmit them.

So, my point is that I'm not sure I totally buy Gilligan's (in)famous dichotomy between "male justice" and "female feeling." Hierarchical directives can be implemented through a "feminine frame", just as kindness and altruism can be filtered through a "stoic male frame." In other words, the medium is not the message.

Tarnishing the Golden Boy

Anybody who needs a rooting interest in tomorrow's big game might consider that uber-telegenic corporate shill and Colts QB Peyton Manning has a bit of a checkered past with dealing with women. While he was at the University of Tennessee, a female trainer for the football team successfully sued the university, as Peyton had sexually harrassed her. Later, Manning tried to explain his actions by saying the woman in question had a "vulgar mouth." Once again, this propagated a lawsuit that Manning quickly threw money at to disappear. Apparently, This female trainer is more of a bugaboo to Peyton than the Florida Gators ever were! Of course, his agents and ESPN worked it out so this "scandal" would be swept under the rug, because all would benefit from having a marketable "golden boy" like Peyton.

I realize it's an uphill battle, but I'm cheering for Chicago tomorrow. Hey, if Trent Dilfer can win a Super Bowl, so can Rex Grossman!

Defusing the Dramabomb

Today, I was asked by a colleague/acquaintance whom I'm on good terms with to "pitch in" and help create a "care package" for a mortal enemy of mine (frankly, the only mortal enemy I have), who is going through tough times right now and cannot return to campus yet. Either the colleague is unaware of the enmity I feel towards the stupid cunt in question (which would be surprising, given her propensity for gossiping and melodramatic whining if she perceives somebody doesn't "like" her). However, being the kind and diplomatic soul I am, I managed to "talk nice" without committing anything, even though the vindictive side of me wants to bash the stupid cunt. Sometimes I wonder if being a product of a family of divorce has rendered me conflict-averse, although I am capable of standing up for myself when I need to. I suppose it's only relative. I guess part of being human is the ability to defuse antagonisms preemptively, and whether the short-term costs of arguing are compensated with long-term benefits (be it an improved relationship, or at least self-respect for standing up for yourself). I am not totally sure whether I perceive and weight these costs and benefits properly, although as always, these considerations tend to be context-dependent.

The Road to Anomie and Jadedness is fun!

The new computer came in the mail today. UPS gives people notice that they can expect their packages between 9AM and 7PM, which is lovely, since most people work or go to school during these hours. When the package didn't come by 2:30, I debated cutting my class, but since it's statistics, and missing one class might destroy a semester's worth of sequential learning (and I'm not intellectually gifted enough in that realm to compensate if I did miss it), I decided it wasn't worth the risk. I ran back home and waited around until it finally came, and after setting it up, it's so wonderful to get to type and surf in a (relatively) ergonomically correct fashion and bask in the crystal-clear, luminous glow of my 20" monitor (while the computer processes everything instantaneously, as opposed to the herky-jerky and precarious chugging along of my old laptop). The only disappointment is that the LCD picture appears to be a bit grainy with a couple of my DVD's (which I understand is a drawback to LCD's relative to CRT's). However, watching DVD's is a very secondary purpose intended for the monitor, so it's not a big deal.

Regardless, I'm happy as a clam right now. I sure I hope this doesn't turn into one of those things that you appreciate immediately, then take for granted and find blase later...

Layers

At a relatively fun department party I attended over the weekend, I got to thinking of how categorizing people into personalities and such (as is my nature to do) can be a complex and confusing process. For example, there's many people in my department with whom I have amiable relationships with and will be happy to occasionally have a pint with, but on a deeper level, I don't respect or like them (note: this sentiment can imply neutrality too, and doesn't necessarily mean there's a negative valence here), and certainly don't want to become close friends with them. So, on one level, I can perceive these people as "okay" and "fun", even though at a deeper level, my sentiments and feelings aren't necessarily totally sunny. I suppose it's kind of like the crazy relative(s) in one's family who are the subject of much chatter behind their backs and derision, although there would never be any thought of excluding or banishing them, as family gatherings are fun with their presence, as well.

Moving inward, I'm beginning to learn that I have great arrogance and coldness in me, at the same time that I can also be insecure and "warmth." I'm smart sometimes and downright moronic at others. I have a long fuse at times and am very patient, and sometimes I think I need extra-strength Ritalin. Sometimes I feel emotionally invulnerable and inured to emotional pain and ebbs and flows, and at others, I feel helplessly weak and swayed by these sorts of emotional matters. I could go on, but I suppose it's all about the contextual interaction effects that catalyze different feelings and notions about oneself (and others, in addition to one's relationship to others - a very Meadian perspective). Perhaps when one doesn't have access to all the facets of their personality and sociability, that's when you start to have pathologies and problems...

YouTube is a Cultural Treasure

...where you can find stuff like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERaBECJY2u0

It's an (in)famous episode of the fantastic 1980's game show Press Your Luck where an unemployed ice cream truck driver spent weeks using his newfangled VCR to rigorously study the electronic patterns used to allocate money on the show. After surmising that the wandering lights followed a pattern, and that two of about thirty squares never contained a fatal Whammy, he managed to get on the show and win over $100K. It's hilarious that everyone on the show is astounded by his "luck" when he manages to not hit a Whammy for over forty rolls (especially because the chances of him hitting a Whammy on any given turn were 1/6). While he did mis-click on a couple of occasions, he was fortunate enough to not hit a Whammy, although with his stockpile of spins, in theory, he could have kept the show going for weeks. Anyhow, it's great that youtube helped unearth this important historical relic, because for a long time CBS was embarrassed by it, and would not air the episode.

Anyhow, the story of the ingenious unemployed man ends sadly on a couple of notes. After he mercifully let the show end, he revealed that he bought his collared shirt for 65 cents at a thrift shop, had to borrow money to make it to L.A. for a chance to play on the show, and didn't have any money to buy his daughter a birthday present (which fortunately changed that day!). It made me incredibly sad to realize that there's people all over who face these emasculating and demoralizing experiences of unemployment and indigence, and that they're supposed to cover up their plight by buying collared shirts. Of course, I guess he put all of his idle time to good use. However, he ended up blowing the money on a real estate swindle and other much less successful get-rich-quick schemes and died running from the Securities Commission, according to Wikipedia. However, if dead people can be comforted by consolation, his 15 minutes of fame have now been immortalized...

Better than Christmas as a Kid...

In a fit of opulence, I decided to buy myself a new computer tonight. I've never owned a computer in my life (I'm currently typing on a seven year-hold hand-me-down laptop that's been on its last legs for years). I went really upscale (at least for a grad student's meager salary) with the monitor and bought a 20" digital LCD monitor, as well. I can't wait to download all of the music and movies I could ever want, and run multiple programs without the computer crashing. Most of all, I hope that my monitor will even make my word processor (I'm going to go cheap and use Open Office, at least at first, thereby avoiding as much Microsoft patronage as possible) look stunningly beautiful, and compel me to fill the screen with text beautified with ClearType (in other words, do lots and lots and lots of work on the dissertation), which is supposed to make text on such screens crystal clear.

The worst part of this is the inevitable waiting for my order to get processed through Dell's bureaucracy, put together and then shipped across the continent from Backwater, Texas. It looks like it'll be about two weeks at the least. Until then, I'm still on the laptop, which is so slow and worn down by now, merely typing makes my computer freeze up briefly after each letter...