escape to insanity

I was recently asked in an interview who I would have lunch with if I had my choice of anyone. Not expecting a question like this, I had no answer. I still don’t really have an answer. I honestly just couldn’t come up with an answer for the guy.

Today I logged onto the BigBlueBall forums, like you do, and noticed a post by sarahtowny asking more or less the same thing, except she made it worse! She asked for a list of the five people you’d invite for a perfect dinner party. Five! That’s an unconscionable number. Five people… geez. So, upon much deep introspective thinking and a good deal of staring at the ceiling, here’s a list of five people I think I might invite, in no particular order. Dead or alive, doesn’t matter, although I assume these people are supposed to have actually existed at one time. Otherwise I’d have Optimus Prime, Darth Vader, and Agent Smith on this list.)

• Mitch Hedberg
• Ole Kirk Christiansen
• Mandy Moore (alternately, Zooey Deschanel)
• Paul Boag
• Ray Kurzweil

Not exactly a list of mega-ultra-superstars from across the ages, I know. But I think it represents me pretty well. The late Mitch Hedberg is arguably my favorite comedian, so he’d be an excellent choice to keep the laughs flowing. If for some reason Mitch can’t make it back from the grave, I’ll go for Lewis Black or Dane Cook in his place. Ole Kirk Christiansen, who many people might not even remotely know, happened to be the founder of one of my favorite childhood pasttimes — LEGO Bricks (note, they’re not supposed to be called “LEGOs”). I’d love to have a chat with that man… he paved the way for many an hour spent huddled over boxes of pieces, assembling castles and spaceships and whatever else happened through my little mind.

I think Mandy Moore is probably the most recognizable name on that list, and I don’t think I really need to explain my motivation for inviting her. She’s beautiful, multi-talented, and actually fairly intelligent to boot. Same goes for Zooey Deschanel, so I’d really like to invite them both over.

Then comes the slightly geeky choices. There’s Paul Boag, master of web standards and leader of the Boagworld Army. He and his site (and the weekly podcast) have been a great influence in my work. I’d be interested in sitting down for a chat with him about the web in general and what life is like for us designers/developers. Ray Kurzweil is an author of several books, notably The Age of Spiritual Machines, in which he details his predictions for human and machine civilizations over the next several decades. I think it’d be interesting to hear his thoughts more in-depth and in person, to be able to talk about where the future is heading.

So yeah. That’s my list, I guess. Not exactly enlightenment-inducing; I’m not inviting Jesus or Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. I also tried to stay away from the Hollywood A-listers; no Ben Affleck or Jennifer Garner (though if Jennifer Garner wants to stop by… I have no problems with that). Just a couple of people who have caught my interest over the years.

Who would you invite?

In the book I'm reading, the author briefly mentions experiments that were being conducted at the time (late 1960s) where Russian and American scientists succeeded in keeping the brains of dogs and monkeys alive (measured by electrical brain activity) in an external apparatus — meaning, basically, a jar. He also mentioned experiments where the scientists had managed to transplant a dog's brain into the living tissue of another dog.

While I can't find any solid proof one way or another to know if this was a hoax or not, it raises an interesting question. Assume that a group of scientists has developed an experimental procedure that would remove the brain from the skull and keep it alive in a jar for a period of time, after which the brain is restored to its usual abode. They've tested this procedure on several dogs and monkeys, and in every case the animals appear to be fine. Of course, the dogs and monkeys can't speak and therefore cannot tell the scientists anything about their mental condition. Out of the 100 animals experimented on, only five have died — two during the procedure and three afterwards.

The scientists are now looking for human volunteers to undergo this procedure, so that upon reinsertion of the brain the subject can describe the experience.

Would you do it?

Image by aigarius, in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution License.

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact.

- Jean-Paul Sartre

Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both.

- John Andrew Holmes

Anyone who knows me much at all knows I'm a big movie guy. I love movies. Among my favorites are of course action movies (like The Matrix, The Rock, etc) and science fiction movies (like Pitch Black, Alien, etc), but really my true interest and loyalties lie with a different sort of movie. That sort is the sort of movie that can make you think, that can get you to step outside of your own existence, however briefly, and consider something besides what's going to blow up next or who's going to get eaten by the slimy space monster.

Into this category falls a good number of movies from a wide range of genres. The Matrix is one such movie — although it has a fairly shallow plot at times, there's more philosophical ideology packed into those two hours than an entire semester of Intro Philosophy. Now, I'm not restricting this sort of movie to merely philosophically lecturing films. If you've ever seen the movie Garden State, you'll recognize it as being the same sort of idea. Without spoiling the movie (if you haven't seen it, go buy or rent it right now and watch it immediately), it's the story of a young man who returns home after living on his own away from his home town for several years. Over the course of the few days he's back home, he begins to realize what life is, and what he's been missing out on. He goes on “sort of a crazy journey” through his life, as he describes it. When I finished watching the movie, I just sat back (or continued to lay back as I'd been doing) and said, “wow. that was fantastic.” I love movies like that, movies that can make you really think. (A similar story is told in the movie Elizabethtown.)

I now have added another such movie to my collection. Following a recommendation by my movie-enthusiast housemate, tonight I sat down to watch a movie called Waking Life. It's essentially the story of a young man who discovers he's experiencing a series of lucid dreams, and as he wakes from one dream into another, he starts to question the nature of existence and the meaning of everything. As he wanders through his dreams, he meets and observes several people, each with their own thoughts on life, existence, death, and all sorts of other abstractions worth pondering.

It's really quite fascinating. I won't bore you with details and such, but if you're into movies that get you thinking, that get you actively following along and thinking along with the storyline and the protagonist, I highly recommend this movie. It's amazing. A quick note about it that makes it even better in my opinion is that it's not done like a typical movie; it's hard to explain, but if you've seen a commercial for Charles Schwab lately, it's done in that style of animation. Gives it a very edgy feel. I'll leave you with a brief excerpt from early in the movie:

And this, this is like my little window to the world and every minute's a different show. Now I may not understand it, I may not even necessarily agree with it, but I'll tell you what, I accept it and just sort of glide along. You want to keep things on an even keel I guess is what I'm saying. You want to go with the flow. The sea refuses no river. The idea is to remain in a state of constant departure while always arriving. Saves on introductions and goodbyes. The ride does not require an explanation, just occupants. That's where you guys come in. It's like you come onto this planet with a crayon box. Now you may get the 8-pack, you may get the 16-pack, but it's all in what you do with the crayons, the colors that you're given. And don't worry about drawing within the lines, or coloring outside the lines. I say, color outside the lines. You know what I mean? Color right off the page. Don't box me in! We're in motion to the ocean. We are not landlocked, I'll tell you that. So where do you want out?

- “Boat Car Man”

I'm about to leave for the first day of my new job…

We'll see how it goes.

I find it amusing that within days of receiving confirmation that I'll once again be gainfully employed, I start to hear back from other companies.

The day after hearing back from my new employer that I'd be starting Monday, I get a call from a woman at a different company that she needs a web developer pronto to get her company online as soon as possible. I of course mention that I would be starting a new job come Monday, and ask if she will still be needing someone to fill the position in three or four months (when my contract with my new employer will probably end). As I expected, she can't wait that long (who can blame her) but she'll keep me in mind for the future.

Also, in the last three days, I've gotten a total of five rejection letters. Two in the mailbox, three emails. Thanks for getting back to me so soon after I applied, guys. Two and a half months later is a great time to get back to someone who was looking for a job.

Meh. Monday morning is gonna hit me hard… I'll have to wake up considerably earlier than normal. But I'll be getting paid again, which is nice.

One of my t-shirts: I thought I wanted a career, turns out I just wanted paychecks.

Finally. Finally things start to look up.

After playing phone tag for a week and a half with this staffing company and the company they represent, I've finally gotten somewhere. This morning I got the phone call that I've been waiting for. The company finally got final approval to hire me on.

I don't know yet when I actually start work yet. They're running a background check on me, so when that clears (in 2 to 8 business days??) they'll let me know. So I could be starting as early as Thursday. Hopefully that multiple homicide from back in '93 doesn't show up on their records. For the record, I did not actually commit any homicides as far as I know.

I find it rather amusing, because last night I started having a dream about having to go back to my old job (which I'm not particularly fond of)… that would not be cool.

For the last two months, I’ve been trying to find a job. Unfortunately, it’s proving more difficult than I expected. Well… a few weeks ago I was contacted by a staffing company representing one of their clients who need someone to do some website work for them. Fairly basic stuff, just moving content from their existing site to a new template.

Had a few meetings, with the most recent one being this last Friday (the 13th). I met with the two people who are actually more or less in charge of the project I’d be working on, had a nice chat, found out some information about the project, all was fine. They said they needed to get final approval to go ahead from their director, and that they’d get back to me no later than Wednesday of this week. Wednesday came and went, no response. I talked to the staffing agent, who told me that they’d been unable to get ahold of this manager, but that they’d call me back by 10:30am of the next day, Thursday. Well, 10:30am Thursday came and went, no response. I call the guy back again, he says he still can’t get a response from these managers. He says if I don’t hear back by noon today (Friday), call back and find out what’s going on. So… I do. He says, again, that he’s going to try to get ahold of these managers and get back to me. Well… it’s 4:41pm and I have yet to hear anything. Ten minutes ago I got to leave a voicemail for him, and now it’s the weekend.

Is it really all that difficult to just make some phone calls and say yes or no? I don’t even care at this point if I got the job or not. I just want to know. I just want a yea or nay. I’m sick of getting jerked around by this company, telling me they’ll get back to me as soon as they can and then never actually getting back to me.

This is getting to be frustrating.