How to beat the ads

My brown dress shoes didn’t quite survive the wedding we attended a few weeks ago. So, I’ve been glued to the computer, looking at new shoes.

I haven’t bought any. But the happy result is that now, all of my browser’s banner ads show pictures of elegant, brown, leather or faux-leather shoes. This is more pleasing to have in the background than the usual eye-popping fare.

It also has sparked an idea for making the web advertisements on one’s computer less painful to view – assuming, of course, that one’s ad-blocker doesn’t already keep everything out.

(1) One should choose something nice to look at.

(2) It has to be something one could buy (not, e.g., a fawn or Mt. Fuji).

But:

(3) It should be something that one has almost no desire to buy, so that it won’t distract one (much).

(4) Any specimen should look like any other.

(5) Corollary: the object should come in a standard color. And this color must be muted, not garish.

(6) Ideally, it should be a natural object. (Not a box of Brillo pads. Not a jug of laundry detergent. A transparent, full milk jug is better but not ideal; see, above, the third point.)

(This sixth point will be qualified later.)

(7) One should visit lots of merchant’s websites and click on pictures of the object. One should do this for several days.

(8) Voilà. This pleasant object, and nothing else, will appear where garish things once did.

I suggest looking at lots of merchant’s pictures of unadorned blue spruce Christmas trees. After a few days, your screen will be flanked by a lovely forest rather than by the Las Vegas Strip. If you can’t stomach anything to do with Christmas, browse cacti or cilantro or firewood instead. You get the idea.

Now I’ll qualify (6). You can get away with looking at artificial Christmas trees because they resemble the natural ones. Not all merchandise has this characteristic, however.

Rules for blogging

“Is this your ‘fall gothic’ blog look?” Karin asks.

Nah, I just compulsively reformat and revise, as regular readers know.

The most significant change is that the section-separating diamonds (♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦) are now tomato-colored, not orange. This would be tricky to implement globally rather than one entry at a time. So I haven’t done it all yet.

Some of my rules for blogging:

• Get the formatting right
• Corollary: learn the necessary HTML
• Get the prose right
• Revise style unstintingly
• Revise substance sparingly
• Post ten times per month (this constrains revision)
• Tell the truth
• Use free fonts
• Don’t try to make money
• Don’t track pageviews (I do see what countries my readers and reader-bots come from, but I can’t distinguish between them)
• Allow comments from human beings, not bots (right now, I’m failing to allow comments at all)
• Don’t worry about who reads (exception: Madame)
• Don’t worry if your wife doesn’t always read
• Don’t worry if people who once read don’t now
• Don’t worry if your content is utterly trivial
• You have almost nothing to say
• This blog is for exercise
• Just follow your very long nose; then retrace and clean up
• Write more like a Briton than like a gringo
• Corollary: some convolution is acceptable
• But emulate your stylist-heroes (e.g., Agatha Christie, Evelyn Waugh)
• If, in overall conception, you must emulate someone, let it be Pepys
• Read more Pepys so you know what you’re talking about
• The Shorter Pepys should suffice
• But it might not

I’ve posted some 1,300 entries here since 2013, and before that I posted on Xanga for almost ten years, so I can speak with some authority.

“Engagement”

This is nicely put by Marco, who was a few years ahead of me at school.

It’s Cunningham’s “Law” (somebody comments). Wikipedia:

[Ward] Cunningham is credited with the idea: “The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question; it’s to post the wrong answer.” This refers to the observation that people are quicker to correct a wrong answer than to answer an unanswered question.

It’s (kind of?) interesting to ponder the ethics of asserting a falsehood in order to elicit the truth. Lying is wrong. (Ditto for other kinds of dishonesty.) But, plausibly, there are exceptions (e.g., to keep persecutors from tracking down their victims). What about the following case? A lie sparks crowd-sourced inquiry and, thereby, is predictably truth-conducive in the long run.

And mightn’t it matter in what institutional setting the lie is asserted? Police interrogators lie to elicit the truth, with society’s blessing. And if I publish an academic paper that asserts a thesis that’s almost certainly false – so that other scholars in this publish-or-perish economy are spurred to publish rebuttals explaining why the thesis is false – am I doing a bad thing? Don’t I advance respectable epistemic goals? (And is it so terrible if I elicit the truth in this manner for non-epistemic reasons: to get hired, promoted, grant-funded, etc. – i.e., for money – so that I can feed my children and mentor college students, who are as innocent as babes?)

But I see what Marco means. I do encounter the sort of thing he describes. I found a particularly shameless example tonight.

Most of the commenters were like, What happened to the state of New York? The Ivy League is dumb.

They made some troll richer by commenting, is what happened.

Pre-tourney gripes

As if we needed more scandal, the rumor spread on Twitter that supporters of Qatar bribed several Ecuadorian players to lose the opening match. The rumorer, a British-based Bahraini journalist, has been identified and discredited.

Still, it irks.

Meanwhile, The Guardian takes pot shots, as it has been doing since Russia and Qatar rather than England and Australia were awarded the hosting rights for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments. The paper now claims that this World Cup is a ruse for the host nation to be glorified through the Argentinian, Brazilian, and French players employed and rested by Paris Saint-Germain. (The club is owned by Qatari investors.) True or not, the criticism is silly. Is it really unfair that PSG should give Messi some days off before the tournament, when other clubs – and entire leagues – could protect their stars if they so chose?

Other criticisms of the host country, and of the social and political evils of global soccer, are more serious. Of these, some are better supported than others. The Guardian’s tally of deaths of foreign workers is especially contentious, yet it is cited without qualification by other mainstream publications, such as The Atlantic.

There is a lot of noise.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I listened to an analysis by the Anglo-centric YouTube channel Tifo Football that got Ecuador’s tactics and personnel pretty wrong. I’m not saying we’re world-beaters or that we play the prettiest soccer, or even that we’re better than Qatar or Senegal or the Netherlands. But it’d be nice not to be slandered. When we lose possession, we don’t immediately stack our players behind the ball; on the contrary, we fight to quickly regain possession high up the field. And it’s Moisés Caicedo who attacks and Carlos Gruezo who drops back, not vice versa. Anyone who watches knows this. (This mistake would be less irritating if the analyst hadn’t just name-dropped Caicedo – a Premier Leaguer – as if he knew whom he was talking about.)

As regular readers know, this is the time when my thoughts and blogging are pretty well filled up by the World Cup.

Sacrilege; renovations; our new neighborhood; the “frankly” book

When I did my little jog this morning, I was not alone. A church was holding a fundraiser. I saw signs for a five-kilometer run and for a one-mile walk. There seemed to be four people running and twenty people walking, the walkers all in one clump.

Messages of inspiration were posted around the course. The most obnoxious message, at a watering station, said “‘I thirst’ (John 19:28)” – as if a 5K fun run were comparable to the crucifixion. This is the sort of sacrilege I expect to see on unbelieving (but biblically literate) British TV, not in the pious middle of the United States.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Karin left her job early so we could do some renovations in the house we bought. Mainly, we pulled up filthy old carpet downstairs. The underlying hardwood is in good condition. We discovered that one of the (less filthily) carpeted upstairs rooms has bare, unvarnished planks underneath, so we left that carpet in place.

We both got some nasty scratches from the carpets’ staples. Samuel wandered around and got into trouble, as usual, but after a time we were able to distract him with Internet videos (a technician came who set up our Internet connection).

I took a brief walk. Several of my new neighbors were out of doors; quite a few of them were speaking in Spanish. My mission was to return “Frankly, We Did Win this Election”: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost to the local branch of the public library. What I read of that book was entertaining. The back cover has a nice blurb by President Trump, praising the author for his wavy hair. Alas, I didn’t have time to finish “Frankly,” and a hold had been placed on it, so I couldn’t just borrow it again. This is what comes of reading too many different books when I’ve checked out a book in high demand.

Quarantining, pt. 2

I keep on ordering vol. 1 of the Strangers and Brothers omnibus and receiving handsome copies of vol. 3. This happens even when I try ordering from different vendors. There must be some error on Amazon’s product page for vol. 1.

Thankfully, my money is being refunded.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Just a moment ago, as I was typing, I received this injurious text message:

Your Amazon package with Strangers and Brothers (Omnibus Edition; Vol. 1) was delivered.

Alas, the package contained vol. 3, not vol. 1.

Would anyone like the leftover volumes? Karin is anxious to be rid of them. I have an extra copy of vol. 2, two extra copies of vol. 3, and zero copies of vol. 1.

I may have to obtain vol. 1 from a distributor made of flesh and blood.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Little Samuel was slightly feverish yesterday: we think his first tooth is about to come out. Today he was happier and had a cooler temperature but remained uncharacteristically docile. He also slept more than usual. I think yesterday’s fever must have worn him out.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Like millions of others, we’ve been attending church services from our living room. No, not by watching televangelists; we’ve been watching video of our pastor and musicians in their respective basements.

Then, tonight, using an online video calling system, we held a “small group” meeting with 5–10 participants. (I give this range because some participants dropped in and out of the meeting.) The highlight, for me, was seeing the dog of one of my fellow churchgoers lazing behind him on the back of his couch.

This reminds me that one of our neighbors has a beautiful husky dog. I keep seeing its tail bob up and down above the top of the fence.

Job hunting, pt. 3.14

I had a bizarre series of interviews with a certain company.

On Wednesday, I met with some of the company’s top people about job X. You are a very strong candidate, they told me. We will certainly consider you for this job. But would you mind also being considered for jobs Y and Z?

All right, I said.

On Thursday, I got a call. My résumé had been passed on to the director of job Y. Would I come in for an interview on Friday morning?

All right.

(It was good that Mary had helped me to choose two sets of interviewing clothes.)

During the interview for job Y, I was told I was overqualified. Something like job Z would be more suitable, and it would pay better. Would I like to go to the highest floor to meet the very top person in the company? He’d seen my résumé and asked to be introduced to me.

OK.

The very top person was in a meeting with other top people. I was ushered into their presence. The very top person leaped up. What sort of work would you REALLY like to do?, he asked.

I told him.

The very top person turned to one of the other top people. Do we have any jobs like that available?

Yes. Z-1 or Z-2.

Would you like to go down to Human Resources to start the paperwork?, the very top person asked me.

Yes.

(This last interview took less than a minute.)

The director of job Y took me downstairs to the human resources department, congratulated me, and went away to continue interviewing candidates for job Y. After a while, two human resources workers appeared.

Yes?, they said.

I’m here about either job Z-1 or job Z-2.

Those jobs are not available.

But this person, that person, and the other person said they were.

Well, they aren’t. Perhaps you would be interested in [other job]?

I’d have to think about it, I said. I left the building. I felt like I’d just passed a series of complicated video game levels only to come back out in level 1.

That afternoon, I had a phone interview with a different company located out of town. It lasted fifteen minutes and was much more straightforward. It was about whether I could do specific tasks, not what would satisfy my innermost longings.

I hope to find out early next week whether I’ve made the first cut.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I wish to thank Karin for going online and figuring out how to tie a Windsor knot for me. In five minutes, she accomplished what I’d been trying to do for about an hour.

That isn’t all she’s figured out how to do. Some fruit flies have infested our kitchen. Karin went online and learned how to build a trap for them. She used a jar with an old banana peel in it.

As you can see, the flies have been trapped in the jar, but they’re doing better than ever. Karin, out of tenderness, has refused to put immobilizing dish soap in the jar. Now the flies are enjoying their fruit and each other, and they’re making children. In effect, as Karin’s friend Nora put it, Karin has built a fruit fly love nest. From time to time, a fly escapes the jar.

A dissection

Under our window this evening, two youths skinned and dissected a raccoon.

Who were these youths? Were they the two young Mormon missionaries who live downstairs (Elders Henderson and Parker)? We couldn’t tell. We’d never seen the missionaries out of uniform.

We’d seen them meeting other Mormons in the parking lot to ride bicycles around the neighborhood. We’d seen them sitting for hours in a parked car, surfing the Internet with their phones. But, always, they’d been in uniform.

Whoever the raccoon skinners were, their activity unnerved me. Don’t raccoons often have rabies?

And how did the youths procure the raccoon? Did they kill it? Had it already died?

And then there’s the matter of Rascal, Sterling North’s book about a boy and his raccoon, which I’d bought just last week at Goodwill. Hadn’t these young ruffians read Rascal? (Well, I haven’t read it either, but now I’m going to.)

And isn’t it a bad sign when youths cut up animals for fun?

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Karin will take our kitties to the vet’s tomorrow. Jasper’s mouth sores have returned, and little Ziva has a bleeding paw.

The stork

Everyone in my family has been waiting all night for Ana & David to receive their foster baby, a nine-month-old girl.

Of course, none of us is in Texas with them. We are waiting over the Internet.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Here is the movie trailer for the upcoming documentary about Fred Rogers.

UPDATE: The baby has arrived, and she’s a cutie!

Quake, pt. 2

Recent figures from El Universo:

443 dead
4027 injured
231 disappeared

Photos on the Web show gray city blocks pulverized, the occasional storefront or utility pole propped up against the rubble, the occasional political poster contributing a spot of color.

People continue to be pulled out of the wreckage. In Pedernales, some are now being detected by how they smell.

There is much suffering in Manta and in Portoviejo. In Canoa, slightly north of Bahía, 80 percent of the buildings have been destroyed.

Relief efforts are intense. Volunteers and supplies pour into the northwest from the larger cities and from abroad. (It’s strange to read that global celebrities are talking about Ecuador.)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

In my own little life, lately, I’ve been doing my taxes; I’ve been typing up more of my Juan Bosch paper; and I’ve been reading and rereading Frank Stockton’s story, “The Lady, or the Tiger?,” and making shiny PDFs of it (it’s in the public domain).

The salt mines, pt. 841

Back at the high school: making copies, moving heavy textbooks. For this I receive, daily, a heap of praise. At home, I dredge the Internet for PDFs of other people’s dissertations. I read their acknowledgements, abstracts, and introductions; and if I decide, “I’m doing better than this poor sap,” I write for a couple of hours. Then I watch Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (Karin is present for some of this). Then I go to bed. This is the routine I foresee for the next nine months – along with tutoring, which I’m on holiday from, one more week.

I go to the school at six-something each morning, with Martin. Mary has retired from teaching. She got a job at a nice little public library. Next week she will go back to college to become a nurse.

“An earthquake will destroy a sizable portion of the Pacific Northwest. The question is when.”

Libro Nacho

Having visited Ecuador, Martin is eager to improve his Spanish. He uses a web app to study the language.

Some recurring phrases:

el oso bebe la cerveza
el gato contra el pingüino

I bought myself a libro Nacho and lent it to him. But no.

On cultivating one’s own garden

Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.
[Luke 12:27]

They know me? They like me?
[Dr. Seuss’s Pontoffel Pock, Where Are You?]

The best compliment I ever got was from the Romaniacs’ mother, the Dragon. Or rather it was from the Dragon’s husband, the Romaniacs’ father/chauffeur; but it was about the Dragon. What you need to understand is, I pretty much worship the Dragon. She’s beautiful and good and fierce, and she has no time for me.

One day I was at Popeyes with the chauffeur, and he said, “___ [the Dragon] really likes you.”

That was the compliment.

It wasn’t surprising, because I’d been noticing a softening in the Dragon’s (distant) face. Still, it was good to hear. The Dragon is not effusive. And she has no time for me.

After a few moments, I pulled myself together and said, “How long did it take for her to like me?” “Oh,” my friend said, “about four years.”

Four years.

Two things, I knew at once. First, what an achievement it’d been, getting liked (for who I was!) by the Dragon; all my demonstrations of intense, guileless integrity had finally started paying off. The second thing I knew was that for the rest of my life, with person after person, I’d have a tough row to hoe.

It’s so crucial to be liked, to have some appreciation given you; otherwise, like a shaded flower, you’ll wither and die. But for it to be meaningful, the appreciation can’t be grounded in falsehood. Your integrity must be complete. And that’s what makes the hoeing so very tough.

I write in order to be liked. Like Pontoffel Pock, I seek appreciation — affection — all over the world. These days I’ve been getting page views from Russia, from the Philippines, from Luxembourg. … They can’t all possibly be from real readers; I don’t know what robots they’re from. I don’t understand how the Internet works.

But sometimes I’ll get page views from Montana, from British Columbia, Romania, Ecuador. I can guess who those readers are. Those page views make me happy. And I get hundreds of views from Indiana, which warms my heart, even though I don’t track the different readers.

All this effort to be liked. And yet there’s One who sees perfectly through my guilelessness, who likes what He sees: despite my efforts, not because of them.

The game against Uruguay

Ecuador, my Ecuador. From the first, we attacked bravely. Felipe Caicedo earned a penalty and then scored it in the same manner in which he’d scored against Bolivia.

Then we hung back and waited for Uruguay to give us spaces. During a counterattack, Christian Benítez seemed to’ve earned another penalty — but instead was booked, unjustly, for diving.

Infuriated, we committed our sole defensive lapse, and the Uruguayans tied the score.

Still, we outplayed and stole points from one of the world’s best teams. The replays are here.

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More tutoring at IUSB. Dunno how helpful I really am, but my students thank me profusely. Many are panicked and seek reassurance. I give them that in heavy doses in order to make my criticisms go down more smoothly.

It’s remarkable what a gentle “bedside manner” I’ve developed these last few years — especially since, with non-students, I continue to be abrasive.

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After work yesterday I watched my dear little friends, the Romaniacs, play soccer. Their team dominated; the ball never seemed to leave their opponents’ half of the field. It was like watching the Spain of the middle-school girls’ league.

Then I visited the Romaniacs’ house; they have two new pet rats, Dusty and Pickles. We all ate supper and I persuaded the Romaniacs to watch “Swooner Crooner.” When Bing Crosby came onscreen, they cracked up, which pleased me. Later I re-sung one of Frank Sinatra’s lines, and cracked up Cristian, the Romaniacs’ father. It’s so gratifying to be with people who think you’re hilarious. :)

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Kenny and I have Web access! We’ve negotiated for weeks with AT&T, and today they finally sent us a technician who could help us. (The previous one was of no use.) Best of all, I got them to promise to waive their installation fee.

More of the same

Who are these Californians who read my Xanga? Sometimes I wonder.

Kenny and I finished viewing Barry Lyndon — an act of masochism. One scene, especially painful, showed various 18th-century bigwigs and damsels playing cards by candlelight. The shots were beautifully composed, but there was little dialog or drama, and the scene dragged on for ten minutes; all the while, tedious chamber music blared.

When, at last, the scene was changed, the narrator said: “To make a long story short …”

This sort of joke was repeated for three hours.

:(  :(  :(

Still no regular Web access, though not for lack of trying. As far as we can tell, our modem is defective.

:(  :(  :(

Today I am inspired by Evelyn Waugh.

:(  :(  :(

Finally my holidays have ended. Yesterday, Cat and Kenny and I went to the beach, and afterward I hosted a dinner party. (I entertained my guests by talking about my books.) But today I put in six long hours tutoring at IUSB.