Perpetual Jet Lag

Meddling Kids.

We had a signup list for Halloween in our building - agree to be home between 5 and 6:30, and kids would get a list of all the apartments that were trick-or-treat friendly. Apartments get a little pumpkin sign for their doors marking them as chock-full of candy.

Jenny and I bought about $25 worth of good stuff: Snickers, Almond Joy, Mounds, Reese's cups, Kit Kats, Twizzlers, the works - two huge bowls full.

6 kids came by.

In about six weeks, please send paramedics to my apartment to make sure I can still fit through the door.

There must be a word in German...

... for the feeling of disconnected apprehension I've felt all week. Several things have happened in the span of a week that have never happened before, each with an increasing direct effect on my own life. This trend is not due to subside, as Tuesday brings probably the most important election in nearly a century.

Essentially it's too much change: not sure what the next step is going to be, what the situation is going to be that I need to react to. I like knowing all the options at least a few steps ahead; all this stuff is changing and shifting so quickly that I don't know where the next surprise is coming from, much less how to react.

The only solution I can find? Mass quantities of alcohol. Tuesday night I'm going to an Election Night party at the 9:30 Club to toast a new beginning, or the beginning of the end. Either way, I'm toasting. Next weekend I'll be in Boston (Mark Coen, check your gmail) visiting a friend of mine whose girlfriend is away. As Jenny will be in London filming Bonfire Night for ProjectExplorer, we'll both be drinking and doing various other very stupid things. As he said it, "Come to Boston. Stay here. Drink heavily. We can celebrate the regime change. (Please, GOD, let's be celebrating the regime change.)"

Something else really cool, yet extremely disconcerting, happened this week. Can't post it, since (a.) it's not official and (b.) it's not for the entire viewing audience, not to mention (c.) saying it aloud could jinx it. I'll hopefully be seeing many of you soon, so I can tell you then.

One to Go

I have 8 minutes of battery left, so here goes:

YAAAAAAAAAY!

I'll be at Mackey's near Farragut North tomorrow watching Game 4 if you want to join me, and most of a Maryland amateur women's hockey team. (Long story.)

Oh, and one more thing: did everyone else's stomach sink when that one-out homer in the ninth went over the wall?

Blog Interrupted

Like an idiot I left my power adapter at the office, so I'm blogging on battery. If I'm lucky I have about an hour or so left.

With that, then, the quick hits:

• Why do St. Louis' batboys look like hooligans in their mid-twenties? And furthermore, why ten minutes of intros before even getting to the players?
• Can Pedro hit? Perhaps tonight's more important question, can Pedro pitch?
• Should I skip the second inning to watch the annual Dupont Circle High Heel Race? It is just up the street a bit... Probably not every day one has the opportunity to see drag queens compete in a sprint.
• Isn't this guy on Bush's side?
• OK, seriously: stop that damned organ music. Deet dur deet dur deet dur deet dur deet deet deet....
• Martina McBride? OK, bring back the organ, please.
• Maybe they could get Ashlee Simpson to sing "God Bless America." I haven't heard "America the Beautiful" in a while. (Get it?)

OK, that's about it for now. If there's any battery left, I might post again closer to the end of the game. In any case,

Go Sox!

Weekend Blogging

Ah, yes, that's why I stopped doing this for so long: I kept enjoying the real world. Silly me.

This weekend, I started a new tradition, cleaned the house a little, did laundry, made panini, watched "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" again on DVD, cleaned out the DVD and gadget drawers, and watched Wednesday's West Wing. (Thanks, Glenn!)

I didn't clean the bathroom, go to see "I Heart Huckabees", or blog.

Oh, and if you have a sec and want to feel all wonky, go find a transcript of "The McLaughlin Group" from Sunday. I've never seen them rip into anyone like that: McLaughlin, Clift, and O'Donnell were tearing into Bush over the flu shot issue (gist: the administration was warned a year and a half ago this could happen, and did nothing.) Tony Blakely kept trying to respond but didn't get a coherent thought together into words, and Pat Robertson just sat there agog. Great TV.

Open Letter to Housekeeping

To the genius who removed my wire hangers from the closet of my hotel room:

You'll notice that one of the wooden hangers that was in my room when I arrived is no longer there. It is holding the clothes that I'd intended to take home on my wire hangers but is now in my suitcase, taking up too much space. I've also been forced to put two shirts on the same hanger, which will no doubt create very interesting crease patterns.

In the future, should I stay at your establishment again, please refrain from removing key items (hangers, suitcases, garment bags, toiletries) simply because they appear not to be in use at the moment you're in the room.

Sincerely, Room 609.

Benefit of the Doubt

Given the sheer audacity of some of the attacks on Kerry (Cheney's recent fearmongering, innumeracy over his "tax hike" votes, twisting of the "nuisance" quote, SBVT, etc.) I have to assume that a Kerry presidency would be plagued by frivilous accusations and other distractions from the policies and actions he would have been elected to accomplish.

The question, therefore, is this: have we gone so far down the road of partisanship that one party will never let the other's guy just lead, to rise and fall by his own actions? Is there a Democrat candidate that the Republicans could caucus with, and conversely, a Republican the Dems can get behind?

They don't have to be actual people: describing qualifications and positions on key issues is enough. I think at one time McCain could have been that Republican, but I wonder if there is such a Dem. (Obama?) This is partly a question about a hypothetical candidate, but also a question about the relative partisan venom on either side of the aisle.

And, I'm Spent

The 21 inch Panasonic in my hotel room and I have just had a very long conversation. Some of the highlights:

How did you drop that? Did he hit you? He did! Oh my God, he did! Call it back!

And the umpires are meeting near first base... we see the replay again here, and that's clear: A-Rod batted that ball out of his glove...

...

And the count's full to Clark...

Come on, you bastard. One pitch. One more pitch. Come on! Get him! ONE PITCH! ONE PITCH! THROW IT!

And the pitch, swing and he's out!

YAAAAAARRHGHRGRHGHGH!¹

I need lithium or something in order to get through tomorrow night. If anyone has some illicit, calming substances, or at least some rope to keep me from trashing my hotel room in frustration, please let me know.

¹ YAAAAAARRHGHRGRHGHGH! is a registered trademark of Dr. Howard Dean, All Rights Reserved.

And Special Thanks...

... go to both the St. Louis Cardinals and the Houston Astros, who were nice enough to carry a shutout 1-hit (each) game to the top of the ninth, so that when the rest of the country finally joined their game, they hadn't missed anything.

Oh, and I'm completely with Atrios on this: I really don't think we can handle a Red Sox - Astros World Series. The country will devolve into chaos. That, and with Game 7 projected for Halloween night (two nights before election night) I'm not sure which would be worse: 48 hours of speculation on the World Series "bounce", or the sleep deprivation that staying up to see the world save itself twice in three nights would entail.

Something I've Never Done Before

Tonight I IMed with a bona fide (YMMV) reporter as he sat in the press box at the ALCS. And he responded. Mr. Editor, if you read this, don't fire him.

Tonight I watched a baseball game on GameCast on ESPN, on TV in a bar, listened to it on the radio, then watched it end in a hotel room in a different state. The same, 5:50 14 inning game. If you'd gotten in a car and left Boston when it started, you could have been in New York City and half way home by the time it ended.

Why must it be so? Why can't the team just let their fans down easy this year? Why must they give this false hope to thousands of people, depriving them of both sleep and a healthy skepticism simultaneously? In short, why can't they just lose?

Today's Unexpected Announcement

Following the AP's accidental release of the election results on October 7, the Washington Post today (briefly) reported that every last Kerry supporter had jumped ship, either to not vote at all or to vote for the Socialist or Peace and Justice candidates.

Here's proof, since updated on their site, and I swear I'm not making this up:

Click for full size

I know the game doesn't start for another three hours or so, but have the Red Sox lost already as well?

In Defense of New York

The other day Jon posted a note (see Oct 11-14) about how little he enjoyed his visit here last week. Though the reasons he cited are hardly unique to us, here are some reasons I think this is the best place to be:

1. As the Knicks and Rangers and Mets show, you can be a terrible team and still make some money. People will buy tickets to your games and just not show up most of the time.
2. We have our own art form: Theater. No matter where you go in the country (and few places in the world, either) you will not see the same caliber of talent or diversity of topic or format.
3. You can drink and dance until 4 AM, then stumble out to find pizza, burgers, tacos, or even breakfast served on any given street.
4. Our subway actually goes everywhere you'd want to go, in a reasonable path. How's a Harvard student get to the Cambridgeside Galleria again? Or A Georgetown student to their own campus from, well, anywhere?
5. We're a lot nicer than people give us credit for. Stand looking at a subway map long enough and someone will ask if you need help getting somewhere, guaranteed.
6. Our tourist attractions aren't for tourists. People work at Rockefeller Center every day, locals have doctor's appointments and job interviews in the Chrysler Building, and we shop at Macy's and Saks and Bloomingdale's.
7. We don't need new urbanism, like Reston or Crystal City or Silver Spring: we have the real thing. Stores next to restaurants next to theaters next to apartments mean a neighborhood grows organically.
8. I concede Penn Station sucks. Eagerly await the day they renovate the Post Office across the street into the new Penn Station, and in the meantime, go to Grand Central.
9. Real food. There is no reason, in good conscience, to eat mass-market fast food. How much faster than a slice of pizza -- or, in a true fix, a street hotdog -- do you really need?
10. The best things here are free. Street fairs, Central Park, the fountains at Lincoln Center, the lights and sights of Times Square, waving like a lunatic outside the Today Show, and wireless internet in Bryant Park are all provided at no charge.

To any of you who haven't been in a while, or haven't been at all, by all means come visit some weekend. I'd be more than happy to introduce you to what I and 8 million others call home.

13 - 6, Top of the Fifth

How in God's name does Gary Sheffield hit anything? Seems it ought to be the easiest thing in the world to pitch in time with his wagging, such that the ball gets there at an off moment in the cycle. He's having a pretty easy time of it tonight.

Is this really the team that swept the Angels? How poorly would they have done against the Yankees?

If nothing else, not winning a game in this series might save a few Bay Staters from premature heart attacks. Getting to a Game 7 and losing seems infinitely more heartbreaking and stressful than never being in it in the first place.

On Voice Recognition

Just got back from lunch and began listening to the Al Franken show mid-way through.

I didn't hear the intro, since the interview had begun already, so for a good 15-20 seconds I thought Al was talking to Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog. Turns out it's George Soros.

Seriously, if I played you a tape you couldn't tell the difference. (In fairness, George never did say "For me to poop on.")

Disappointing Evening

After a point, it just stops being fun watching your guy beat the crap out of his opponent rhetorically. When Bush's second statement of the debate was "I don't think I ever said I wasn't concerned with Osama" when we all knew he had said those exact words, I almost changed the channel. When he said he wouldn't rely on what news organizations said about his exaggerations then stopped mid-thought, I muted it. When the phone rang and Jenny told me to watch his response to the "is homosexuality a choice" question, it got to be too much.

Then the freakin' Red Sox lose again. And not even in an exciting way: they just fold up in the first two innings and never really respond.

When does real life stop, so I can get back to the fantasy land of TV comedies and dramas?

On Coding a Site

There are a couple of interesting widgets I'd like to put together, though finding the ambition is getting difficult.

How do you start a new site? Do you think about the design first, or the code, or the audience? If you know you have a project ahead of you, what do you do to start the process moving?

I know what the "right" answer is (at least, I think I do) but I can't seem to find the ambition after working 10 hours, at least, a day. Thank goodness for Movable Type and prefab templates, otherwise this blog would never exist. I don't know how Jon does it, editing his own code every day.

In any case, here's what I'm working on:

• Daily photos and thumbnails under that date bar on the left
• A home page for attemptedchemistry.com that pulls the XML feeds from our blogs and posts the most recent entry
• Additional links and cleanup on the style sheet (why do links practically disappear in the comments?)

If you have any features you'd like to see (or need help with any of your own) let me know!

On Charitable Debauchery

I know there are poker fans in the audience, so if you happen to be in New York on Wednesday, please consider the following charity event to benefit Broadway Cares / Equity Fights AIDS. It's a bit pricey, sure, but how many times are you really going to have a chance to play a World Poker Champion?

On Bias and Fairness

On what planet is something like this OK?

I give a fair bit of leeway to people's personal beliefs, to a genuine disagreement on matters of opinion, no matter how certain I may be in my own position. That said, I can't imagine a coherent argument that can be put forth that says a media group can mandate distribution of blatantly partisan content like this.

To crib a bit from Atrios, can you imagine what would happen if Belo or Clear Channel mandated an airing of Fahrenheit 9/11 or Going Upriver? The squeals from every corner of the country would make such an effort backfire like a '74 Gremlin.

Not sure what the remedy is, since these stations are privately held and managed, but there ought to be a huge fine from the FCC. After all, if the going rate is $550,000 for a split-second of a breast, then this compendium of horses' asses should be worth at least a few million.

On Starting a Trend, or That Singular Funk

It's now nearly 11 PM Eastern: I'm cutting this whole "one post per day" think a little close, aren't I?

Tonight was a work outing, a bowling match between the client team I'm part of and the one I was part of about 18 months ago. (Two TV clients, both in the DC area. You can easily guess three, then eliminate one.) I haven't been bowling since I went out with these same people nearly three years ago, and surprisingly haven't gotten any better or worse since.

There's a certain odor to a bowling alley, one that if you were brought in blindfolded and earmuffed you'd still know exactly where you are. The acrid smell of stale smoke with a subtle chemical smell of lane wax mixed in is one that is never recreated. (Thought: since smoking indoors at pubs and the like is outlawed in New York now, what does Bowlmor smell like?)

Needless to say I had a good time, since a little competition is always fun, especially if you are not very good at what you're doing. Luck is the great equalizer.

For any detail-oriented enough to care, I bowled a 133. Not bad, but not very good either.

On the Naming of a Blog

The creation of this new arena for whatever ideas I feel necessary to thrust upon the world requires consideration of a name. Several ideas came to mind, all pretty worthless:

• Fancy Store-Bought Dirt, Blogalicious, and Cooch's World: All taken. That, and "Cooch's World" makes absolutely no sense in this context, unless I'm a woman writing from the perspective of my own pudenda. Which, thankfully, I'm not.
• Grade A Bullplop: Simpsons-inspired, which is always positive, but I may want to write something heart-felt and that title could seriously break the mood.
• Obsequia, Obscuritia, or other "latin-inspired" names: Cute, but worthless. Take Eschaton: no one refers to that site as that, and if they do, they're clearly uninformed. Everyone just reads Atrios, a pseudonym just as bad. I get the need to be incognito, but still... a little less pretention is in order, I think.

Instead I went with "Perpetual Jet Lag", a condition I unfortunately suffer from. I've been in five countries already this year, likely at least one more before the year is out, and my commute schedule and workload leave me continually sleep-deprived. This should make the entries coming forth quite interesting.

So why read this? Well, for one, I plan to post quite a bit more often than I did here, pledging to myself (and by extension, you) at least one post per day. Some won't be great, as the minutia of my usual days at work bores even me, but they'll be here. And hopefully I'll occasionally have a unique take on something or other.

In any case, I'm glad you're here, and I hope you stick around.

Oh, and the design will also gradually improve with additional links and things. But for now, enjoy the content.