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Chandler met Monica at a party. They hit it off. All she had in her purse to write her email address on was a deposit slip from her checkbook. I suggested he ask her that, if she was going to go out with him a few times and then dump him, could he just use the deposit slip to put a couple hundred bucks in her account and they call it even.

They emailed each other and began dating. Now they’re married and have a daughter, Emma. I don’t think Chandler ever told Monica my cynical comment — quite possibly the most cynical single comment I have ever made. (If he did, neither of them have held it against me. I am invited to Emma’s birthday party every year.)

Note: This is not a true story. Well, it is, but Chandler, Monica, Emma, and I are not our real names.

Geek Alert! Do you recognize the common thread of TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT? They are the various incarnations of Star Trek on television, of course. Today is the day for “worldwide rallies” in support of continuing Star Trek Enterprise for another season. Paramount announced cancellation of the series on 3 Feb. 2005.

Star Trek has enjoyed an unprecedented run through live action and animated TV, movies, books, fan clubs, and conventions. Fans have organized a campaign through Save Enterprise and Trek United that:

worked successfully last year to ensure Enterprise’s fourth season, faithfully raising several thousands of dollars for a number of high profile ads to promote the show. Together, we aim to bring the devotion of Star Trek fans to a new level, launching the Star Trek fan campaign of the 21st century: TrekUnited.

Our mission: to boldly go where no fan campaign has gone before and raise money to sponsor the actual production of another Star Trek: Enterprise season, uniting Star Trek and science fiction fans around the world! We have support within the cast and crew for this unique endeavor. Furthermore, the executives of Paramount, the exclusive rights holder to the Star Trek franchise, have expressed their willingness to talk. However, they want to see hard evidence that we are capable of pulling this off. In light of the 1968 fan campaign which successfully brought back the original Star Trek series, it is not the first time executives underestimate the fans, so let’s show them what we can achieve together!

So this time, in addition to writing letters and holding rallies, they are attempting to raise enough money to pay the production costs for the next season, an estimated $35.2 million. That’s less than $12 each from the approximately 3 million viewers of season four according to the group’s FAQ. They are just short of $50,000 as I write this.

I’ve never considered myself a Trekkie (or Trekker). I’ve seen all the movies and have watched at least parts of each of the TV series. I never got into this latest version though. And while there have been other TV shows that I was much more saddened to see leave the airwaves, I have never considered writing letters or attending rallies to keep any of them going. And I certainly never considered offering to pay for the production costs! In a way, I admire the devotion of the fans, but I can’t help remembering when William Shatner hosted Saturday Night Live in 1986. In a truly inspired skit, he exhorted a group of fans to “Get a life!”

Tonight’s post is just for fun and comes from a link on Mike’s List, “a free e-mail newsletter based entirely on a single proposition: technology is funny.”

The BBC reports that a “miniature television camera and radio transmitter is fitted on to a harness and can be placed on the heads of Northumbria Police dogs. It means they can search buildings and relay the information back to officers.”

There’s a pun in there somewhere — dogged reporting, maybe? — I’m just too tired tonight.

I read an article recently warning us about the lack of privacy in our electronic communications, especially at work. The article was partly an explanation of the technology we use and partly a discussion of romance in the workplace. Whether we flirt with a coworker or with someone off-site, we take a big risk doing either on a corporate network.

I’m not a proponent of workplace romance anyway (especially since the dragon lady, but that’s a story for another day). But we need to be aware that on corporate networks all of our communication (email, instant messages, web access, etc.) is monitored and logged. Copies of every email message you send and receive are stored and can be subpoenaed or used to justify termination of employment.

Granted, your IT department should have much more pressing work than to watch where you’re surfing, who you’re chatting with, or what you’re emailing. But the fact remains that they CAN do all of that and more. It’s much better to keep your personal communication off the office computers completely.

What really threw me though was an almost offhand reference to a column by sexologist Ian Kerner. He states:

If you find yourself in a situation of jeopardy, either after work or at a convention, or wherever, and things are heating up and you’re really lusting, go to the bathroom and splash cold water on your face, and remind yourself that you’re on the verge of potentially ruining your personal life AND your professional life. It won’t help. The call of new sex is too strong. So go in a stall and masturbate. Relieve the sexual tension. Get it all out. This will buy you about a half hour of sanity — when there’s opportunity for new fresh sex, our refractory period (the interval between erections) is at its briefest — so use this tiny window of opportunity to get the hell out of dodge.

WHAT?! Do we have such poor impulse control that we have to sneak off to a bathroom stall? Get a grip… but wait till you get home for chrissake. If your boss is gonna get in a tizzy over personal email, I can’t imagine he or she will look less kindly on using company time to explore the sound of one hand clapping. At least now I know why every bathroom has those signs, “Employees must wash hands….”

complex
noun, 1 : a whole made up of complicated or interrelated parts (a complex of university buildings)
adjective, 2 : hard to separate, analyze, or solve
noun: a group of repressed desires and memories that exerts a dominating influence upon the personality

So, if you have repressed desires about a hard to analyze group of university buildings, you have a complex complex complex.

fob transitive verb, archaic, DECIEVE, CHEAT
fob noun, an ornament attached to a fob chain
fob off transitive verb, 1: to put off with a trick, excuse, or inferior substitute
2: to pass or offer (something spurious) as genuine
3: to put aside

I took it off my keychain. It was a little plastic license plate I carried for three years. Because she gave it to me. Because we flirted a little. Because even though I knew we could never be, it was fun to pretend a little that maybe…. But it was chipped and faded. And it wasn’t really the one she gave me anyway. My keys were stolen so I bought one just like it. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Definitions from Merriam-Webster Online

we share colorful candy-coated chocolates
i hold your hand in mine
i melt into yours
here, m, have another green one

Wow.
WOW!
(indistinct mumbling)
Stunning!
Wha-huh? Right. Stunning. Do I look stunned?
I feel a tingling sensation….
Shut up! How do I look?
Your mouth is closed, you’re not drooling. We’re cool!
Is it hot in here?
Yeah, she’s really hot!
I feel like an idiot. Do I look like an idiot? Please, god, don’t let me look like an idiot.
Look at those –
Eyes! Maintain eye contact.
But get a load of her –
Eyes! Wait, am I staring now? I should look away. She’s going to think I’m some kind of stalker.
Yeah, I’d like to stock her. Heh heh heh.
Shut up! I don’t even know what that means, but you make it sound dirty.
Heh heh heh.
Cut that out!
She’s leaning over. Look down her blouse.
No! She’ll think I’m a creep.
She expects you to look. If you don’t look, she’ll think you’re gay.
Maybe I can catch a glimpse without her noticing…
So you’re gonna look and she’ll still think you’re gay because she doesn’t know you looked.
Well, no one can blame me if my eyes just kind of wander down…
Woo-hoo! Hooters! I wonder what color her –
Eyes! Look at her eyes!
Lace. I definitely saw some lace.
Yeah, it’s amazing how you can see the lace and still be imagining her naked.
Yeah, naked. Heh heh heh.
Shut up. I can’t hear what she’s saying. Smile. Nod. Pretend you’ve been paying attention.
I’m standing at attention. Does that count?
(Grinning stupidly.) Wait, what is she looking at. Do I have something in my teeth?
Teeth… zipper… my turn! Heh heh heh.
Oh my god. Did she ask a question? Is she waiting for me to say something?
Let ME do the talking.
That’s definitely not going to happen.
I know how to drive home a point.
You are so disgusting. You’re gonna get me slapped–
Me next, me next!
–or worse get me arrested–
Might be worth it.
–and thrown in jail–
Might be worth it.
–in a cell full of men–
Might be a good idea if you take over again….

For many years my reaction to Valentine’s Day was, “Bah Humbug!” I often thought we should have a character like Scrooge to express the anti-Valentine’s sentiment. But it occurred to me that that’s just about every man, certainly the unattached or insecurely attached ones, and more and more often includes the unattached women I know. I expect the blogosphere today to be filled with diatribes against those who have done us wrong and lamentations for those by whom we wish we had done better. There’s no doubt that the day has been co-opted by the candy, flower, and greeting card companies. That too makes for easy fodder, but what holiday is not overcommercialized these days? Recently, though, I’ve reached an uneasy truce with the get sappy brigade.

Ironically, my revelation came from an academic protest. It seems that some parents complained that publishing the names of honor roll students might be embarrassing to students that did not achieve the status. [An urban legend has grown around this indicating that schools have stopped creating honor rolls in response to the threat of lawsuits. The research I have done so far indicates that there were indeed some protests, but no school has stopped the tradition of honor rolls because of it. At least one school district did delay posting an honor roll when their lawyer adivsed them that they should have written permission of the honor roll student's parents before publishing the student's names.]

Anyway, the quick-to-litigate nearly always piss me off as do parents that coddle their children beyond reason. Does selecting an MVP for a sports team embarrass the rest of the team? Should we not post election results so the also-rans can feel better about themselves? Shouldn’t the students that did NOT make honor roll learn to congratulate their classmates for the accomplishment? And perhaps take it as a challenge to improve their own performance?

And so the onslaught of merchandising to romantic couples might make singles feel left out. We might feel discouraged and depressed — perhaps even embarrassed by our perceived “failure”. Instead, I’m learning to congratulate those lucky few that have romance in their lives. There are so few really good marriages (or other long-term commitments), I am happy for those who are able to manage it. I’ve been with enough of the wrong ones that I am more comfortable being alone. For now, I choose to be unattached, but that does not not give me the right to suggest that Valentine’s Day should be abolished or even diminished to keep me from feeling uncomfortable with that choice.

Go Cupid!

I’ve been reading about reading today. An article about the difficulty in teaching machines to read and comprehend lead me to the START Natural Language Question Answering System. (Apparently, an engineer’s idea of scientific common naming convention.)

From that site:

START, the world’s first Web-based question answering system, has been on-line and continuously operating since December, 1993. It has been developed by Boris Katz and his associates of the InfoLab Group at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Unlike information retrieval systems (e.g., search engines), START aims to supply users with “just the right information,” instead of merely providing a list of hits. Currently, the system can answer millions of English questions about places (e.g., cities, countries, lakes, coordinates, weather, maps, demographics, political and economic systems), movies (e.g., titles, actors, directors), people (e.g., birth dates, biographies), dictionary definitions, and much, much more. Below is a list of some of the things START knows about, with example questions. You can type your question above or select from the following examples.

So for grins I asked some questions — including a couple very specific questions that I was pretty sure would not be in the database. No big surprise on the answers as you can see below.

Who moved my cheese?

Sorry, no one has told me who moved your cheese.

What is the population of Florida?

Florida
Population: 13,003,362 (1990 census).
Source: WorldBook

12,937,926 people live in Florida.
Source: START KB

Who wrote blue suede shoes?

I think you can find the relevant information here:

* Blue Suede Shoes (1980) (movie in The Internet Movie Database)

Who wrote the song blue suede shoes?

Sorry, I don’t have this information.

Who is Carl Perkins?

Perkins, Carl

Perkins, Carl (1932-1998), was one of the first and most influential stars of rock music.

Source: WorldBook

Perkins, Carl

rock ‘n’ roll singer, songwriter, guitarist; born in Lake City, Tenn. He performed with his brothers Jay Perkins and Clayton Perkins at country dances and in 1955 began recording for Sun Records.

Source: Biography.com

Now, this is a little freaky. I also asked, “Who is in Herman’s head?” And I swear I got an answer like “Sorry, I don’t know who is in Herman’s head.” But while I was writing this blog entry I went back to copy and paste the answers. There’s a very different answer there now. Go take a look….

Oh, and on a tangential note, The Art of Getting By notes today, “Sure, it might take a lifetime to love reading, but it takes no time at all to read between the lines.”

Thanks for reading!

Herman’s Head was a sitcom that ran for three seasons (’91-’94) on the FOX TV network. Four actors played parts of Herman’s psyche (sensitivity, lust, anxiety, intellect) that observed, commented, and argued about how he should respond to the events in his life. The voices in his head were much more clearly defined, and funnier, than mine are. But I remembered this show when I began working on something I expect to post soon. I was surprised to find there are several websites with info and I’ll post a couple links below. Many people found it as innovative and funny as I did but, apparently, not enough of us for FOX to continue production. They sited poor ratings as the reason for cancellation.

Featured on the show were:

William Ragsdale as Herman, several other TV series and TV movies on his bio.

Hank Azaria as Herman’s best friend Jay, does several voices for The Simsons and, in my opinion, one of the best comic voice and character actors ever.

Jane Sibbett as the gorgeous (knows it and uses it) coworker Heddy, tons of acting, producing, and TV guest appearance credits including as one of the actresses to play Ross’ ex-wife on Friends.

Yeardley Smith as the sweet and innocent coworker Louise, probably best known now as the voice of Lisa Simpson.

Jason Bernard as the know-it-all boss, Mr. Bracken, passed away in 1996 so anything you might have seen him in was probably before this show.

Molly Hagan as Angel (sensitivity), lots of movie rolls and TV guest appearances.

Ken Hudson Campbell as Animal (lust), lots of acting and voice credits.

Rick Lawless as Wimp (anxiety), only a couple other credits listed.

Peter Mackenzie as Genius (intellect), lots of movie and TV credits.

http://www.eyrie.org/~thad/hhead/hhead.html
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101115/
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/tv/program-guides/hermans-head/