They say you can learn a lot about a person from the books on their bookshelf. I say you can learn even more about a person from the books on their bedroom floor. So that you might know me better, I now present to you a list of all the reading material I picked up off the floor when I cleaned my room today.

Books: Last Chance to See, Douglas Adams Founding Brothers, Joseph J. Ellis Doom Patrols, Steven Shaviro Making Documentary Films and Reality Videos, Barry Hampe Fundamentals of Data Structures in C, Horowitz, Sahni, and Anderson-Freed Dispatches From The Tenth Circle, The Onion Magazines: Outdoor Photographer - April 2002 Audi Magazine - Winter 2002 Popular Science - November 2002, October 2002, June 2002, August 2002, May 2002 Bellevue Community College Continuing Education Class Schedule - Fall 2002 Computer Videomaker - April 2002, September 2002 Bellevue Community College Credit Class Schedule - Fall 2002 GQ - October 2002 Scientific American - September 2002 Wired - September 2002 Silver Platters Catalog - Summer 2002 Software Development - August 2002 American Photo - July/August 2002 Computer Shopper - May 2002 Vanity Fair - May 2002 Reel News (Cinema Seattle Newsletter) - Spring 2002 Filmmaker - Spring 2002 Res - March/April 2002 Esquire - September 2002 Entertainment Weekly - August 23/30, 2002 PSM - August 2002 B&H Photo Catalog - June 2002

Yes, my room was very messy.

  feng and I went to a Vietnamese restaurant for dinner tonight. (Yes, you read that right: Vietnamese. I can change!) At the end of the meal we got fortune cookies. My fortune was this:

"A liar is not believed even though he tells the truth."

Wha...? Muh...? We puzzled over this for several minutes, inspecting each word carefully in an attempt to extract even a shred of meaning from it. We failed.

          "You should save that and use it on some android that's hasslin' you," feng said offhandedly.

This type of comment is precisely the reason that feng is so great. Not only is he witty, but he grasps the severity of the android-hassling problem better than anyone. When the War Against Machines begins, I hope that feng is in my foxhole, staving off a murderous coffee maker with a broken chair leg and a book of Zen koans.


After dinner we went to see the newly-restored Metropolis. If you like science fiction or movies in general, you should see this film. It's hard to underestimate the influence the movie has had on popular culture. Without even trying you can find bits of Star Wars, Blade Runner, The Terminator, THX-1138, 1984, Citizen Kane, Triumph of the Will, Dune, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, "The Prisoner", Tron, Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, Moulin Rouge, and The Matrix, to name but a few.

Visually, it's one of the most stunning and inventive movies ever made. The film's age has done nothing to diminish the impact of its imagery. The lighting, composition, and editing are enough to make Orson Welles blush and make David Lynch green with envy. It's still inspiring after 75 years - it's that striking.

My favorite scene is the one in which Freder has to work on the giant clock machine. Light bulbs light up around the face of a seven foot tall clock, and every time the lights change he has to move the hands around so that they point to the illuminated bulbs - over and over again, for ten hours. It's so illogical and mindless that it's profound. At the end he's so exhausted that he cries out, "Will ten hours ever end?" I think we've all had days like that.

The impact of the restoration is immense. You can't really appreciate it unless you've seen one of the poor VHS or DVD copies that are currently floating around. The image is improved tenfold. You can actually, you know, see the stuff that's on the screen. There are a few shots that are worse than the others - the film was clearly assembled from multiple sources. Still, it's an amazing improvement.

Storywise, the restored version is almost a completely different film from its predecessor. Enourmous amounts of the plot were cut after the film's premiere, and the restorers claim that this is the most complete version of the film we will ever get. The additional footage makes it so that you can, you know, understand what's going on. Entire subplots are restored. Scenes that previously seemed random and arbitrary finally have meaning. Major characters have motivation. What's even better is that, in addition to the new footage, they've also found notes to indicate where there are still holes, and what that missing footage contained. These sections are pointed out with titles, which allows you to understand the film even better.

With all of the pieces put back together in the right order, it's actually a pretty complicated film. Although it's definitely a message movie, there's a lot going on - multiple heroes, multiple villains, and lots of plot twists. The ending is still a bit on the nose - no amount of restoration could fix that - but this is the only flaw in an otherwise amazing movie. It's gratifying to know that the world has finally preserved this film for future generations to experience. Highly recommended.

  Today I ate fast food for the first time since finishing Fast Food Nation. Actually, it was also the first meat I've eaten since then, period. BK talked me into getting hamburgers for lunch, and I relented, partially because I was tired, but mostly because I was starving for real food. (Vegetarianism is clearly not for me.) I insisted on Jack In The Box, however, since they're the only chain I know of that actually tests their food for E. coli. Although the food tasted delicious, eating it was an uneasy experience. I did my best not to think about slaughterhouses, but I didn't entirely succeed. Speaking of which, here's a great quote from the Jack In The Box Animal Welfare page:

"Caring for animals is an American value. In fact, few societies respect animals in the way Americans do. This value is shared by the meat industry, which has made animal well-being a high priority. "

I bet "Well-Being of Animals" is at the very top of the meat industry's priority list, right after "Killing and Eating of Animals".

In non-meat-related news, I've added a new photo to my photo battle page. It's another piece from my Blue Period.

  While driving in my car today I was struck with a great idea for my novel. "I could write about a guy with no thumbs," I thought to myself.

NaNoWriMo starts in seven days, and all I've got to work with is a caveman and a guy with no thumbs. This could be the worst novel ever.

  Telesales Challenged



"Hello, my name is Scott. How may I help you?"

"Thank you for calling. Have a nice day!"

These are not sentences that I normally utter unless they are topped with a healthy serving of sarcasm and delivered with a vigorous rolling of eyes. Today, however, I was forced to stow my cynicism and put on a happy voice, because today was the day that I became a telesales agent.

Allow me to explain. The dot com I work for has begun using telesales as a way to provide better service to our customers. Our CEO decided that it was important for the product development teams to learn more about this operation, so he challenged us to go down to the telesales office and take a turn manning the phones. Whoever sold the most would get a trip to Hawaii.

I had no illusions about winning the trip. I signed up because telesales has a direct impact on my work, and because I wanted to get a glimpse of a job that I otherwise might never experience. Also, my boss made me.

"The goal for our team is 100% participation," she said. This is her incredibly nice way of saying, "Sign up or it will show up on your review.” I signed up.

Our nearest telesales office is in Tacoma, which is about 45 minutes away from my office. I left late, so I had no time to eat lunch. I was a little lightheaded as I weaved my way through traffic.

Miraculously, I arrived on time. The receptionist showed me and Glenn, my fellow telesales newbie, to The Floor, where the agents sit. It had wooden rafters, exposed brick, and nice, adjustable desks. I could see Tacoma shimmering through the wavy antique glass in the windows.

There were three unmanned desks in the front, each one with its own computer and telephone. I sat down at one and noticed something else: an ominous black headset. I was gripped with terror.

Maybe I had been too busy with other things, or maybe reality just hadn't sunk in, but up to that point I had not been nervous at all. This was surprising, because I hate selling. You have to be pushy to sell, and I’m not pushy. Whatever the cause of my coolness, it disappeared completely when I saw that headset. All of the butterflies in my stomach leapt into my throat. This was really going to happen. I sat down and failed to look calm.

After a few minutes of quietly sweating in my chair, I was introduced to Dana, who was to be our chaperone. She led us through a far-too-brief briefing about the procedures we were to follow, while Glenn and I flipped wildly through the information packet we'd been given.

Dana was wonderful, supportive and surprisingly un-pushy. She cheerfully described the procedures, telling us that it was no problem and generally being far more positive than the facts suggested was prudent. This caused me and Glenn to laugh nervously and make various grunting noises, which inspired her to say something even more supportive, which in turn caused us to grunt even more passionately. We chased each other in this manner until our shift started. At this point Dana was convinced that we would be the best telesales agents ever, and we were politely trying to find a hole into which we could crawl and expire in peace.

We put on our headsets and logged into the phone system. We were then supposed to press the "Auto In" button, which would put our phones in the routing pool for the calls that came in. I took a deep breath, screwed up my courage, and pressed the button. It lit up red and green, and I was instantly greeted with...silence. Glenn and I looked at each other. I looked at Dana. There were no callers. We waited. It was excruciating.

Then, suddenly, a computerized voice in my ear announced that a caller was on the line. I inhaled sharply. There was a pause, then a beep, and...I was on.

"Hello, thank you for calling. This is Scott; may I have your name please?" I said, as brightly as I could.

Actually, I don't know if this is what I said. I can't remember my exact words. We had been given a piece of paper containing the standard greeting that we were supposed to read, but I had forgotten to look at it. At this moment it hit me: I had no safety net. This whole operation was just me talking, and the customer would hear whatever I said. What if I screwed up? I fought off panic. I just wouldn’t let it get to me.

As the customer told me what they wanted, I accessed the computer system to find him some information. The computer system would not let me in. My login had expired. I tried logging in again, and it failed. I swallowed hard. Finally, I managed to wrestle the computer into submission. I was on the ropes, but I had vowed not to let it get to me, and I wasn't about to give up on that vow.

The customer asked me a question about a product. I clicked around in the computer and quickly realized that I had no idea what the answer was or where to find it. I was completely stuck. It was a disaster. I decided it was time to give up on my vow, and I let it get to me.

"Could you hold for a moment, please?"

I put him on hold and gesticulated wildly at Dana. I related the problem in short, panting breaths, and she coolly gave me the answer. I took the customer off hold and surprised myself as I automatically switched back to my Professional Phone Voice.

"Yes, sir, it's the same as the other one, but it's on sale. Would you like to go ahead and purchase it?"

He didn't want to go ahead and purchase it. He was still shopping around. So were the next four customers I spoke to. They were all "shoppers", and I was nice and friendly and Professional to them, but secretly I was seething. I had a job to do, and they were wasting my time! To make things worse, in less than an hour Glenn had already racked up three sales totaling over $2000. I had nothing. How did a nice person like Dana deal with this pressure every day?

After my fifth unproductive call, the computer voice piped up again. The caller was a man who had been shopping on the web site and wanted to buy, but he wasn't sure that he knew how to do it.

"I can help you with that," I said.

And I did. He bought something - three somethings, in fact. I had made a sale! It was easy, and I didn’t have to be pushy at all. It was only $300, but still! Dana high-fived me. Glenn high-fived me. I was in the club.

A few minutes later I got another call - this person bought something too! The next person was very confused, and I helped her sort out her problem and she bought something. Not only did she buy, but I talked her into getting an add-on. She spent $800, and she hadn’t been conned into it. She actually thanked me for my help! In the last hour I got five calls, and I converted every one of them. As I celebrated my fifth sale, this one to a very friendly woman in Virginia, Dana put her hand on my shoulder.

"Nice job! That's a great way to finish up!"

Finish up? I looked at my watch. It was 4:00, and my shift was over. I didn’t know how to feel. I was elated at my success, disappointed that I couldn't make any more sales, and relieved that it was over. I added up my totals. I had taken 10 calls and made 5 sales, for a total of $1606.

As we waited for Glenn to finish up his final call, I asked Dana if she had a sales quota.

"Yes," she said. "$10,000 a day."

I goggled. $10,000? I was exhausted after a two hour period in which I pulled down less than $800 an hour. This would leave me 40% shy of her quota. I told her that I had had fun, but I couldn’t imagine doing it for a living.

"It's nice to have a goal every day," she told me. "You meet your goal, then you go home. You come back the next day, and you have another goal."

That's the part that got me. I would be disheartened to know that I had to start from zero every single day - never getting anywhere, never making any progress.

Then again, I thought, maybe progress is illusory. My job is to help develop software. We work on it, we release it - on the surface, it looks like we're making progress, but we all know that software is never finished. There's always another version waiting to be developed. We’re just going around in a circle, but we only complete one lap per year. It might be nice to go home every day knowing that you accomplished what you set out to do. I was starting to see her point.

Just then, Glenn finished his last call - a $1200 sale - and added up his totals. 11 calls, 8 sales, $5000. Only one other person in the contest had sold more.

"It's the luck of the draw," Dana consoled. "He got a lot of buyers and very few shoppers."

It didn't matter. I had accomplished what I set out to do – I made some sales, I didn't do any irreparable harm to my company's reputation, and I didn't make a fool out of myself. I even made some customers happy, which was beyond my expectations. It was time to go home. I took off my headset and pressed the Logout button on my phone. When I pushed it, a couple of other buttons on the phone lit up green. I nudged Dana, and we watched the green lights blink out.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I think you hung up on someone."

  Listening: Jurassic 5, Quality Control
Eating: Cheese pizza

In all the book review hubbub yesterday, I neglected to mention that I thought of an idea for my novel over the weekend. It seemed like a fantastic idea when I came up with it at 2 AM on Saturday, but after thinking about it for a couple of days I've decided that I don't like it. I am not despondent, however. It's actually a good feeling to have had a complete idea for a story - it had an ending and everything. Now that I've got my lousy idea out of the way, it's full speed ahead to my real idea, which will hopefully come along within the next 10 days.

Disturbing experience: as I sat in my den writing email this evening, I found myself at Amazon.com browsing through a book listing, clicking on the convenient "Look Inside" link, and previewing selected pages of a book that I already own - a book that, in fact, was sitting on a shelf a mere five feet behind my head at the time. It's moments like this in which I feel that my brain is only loosely affiliated with the rest of me for the purposes of nutrition and locomotion, and that it would gladly move out and go somewhere else if only it had access to a miniature wheelchair, a box of PowerBars, and a mouth with which to eat them.

When you're done reading today's entry (if you haven't already clicked away to The Onion or something - and frankly, who could blame you), please mosey your mouse over and read one of my favorite blogs, now conveniently listed in the left-hand column. All of these people have humorous and interesting things to say, and even though I only know two of them personally I feel safe in recommending them all to you as luminaries, commentators and, in a pinch, bodyguards. They are all upstanding citizens, and I think one or two of them have even won the Nobel Peace Prize. Give them a look - you'll be glad you did.

  Hello, all. I just returned from a whirlwind 3-day trip to Indiana to attend a wedding. Since neither Indiana nor weddings have likely changed since your last experience, I won't bore you with the details. Instead, I will favor you with:

In-Flight Book Reviews
What I Read On My Trip

Outbound: The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time, by Douglas Adams
This book consists of two parts: an unfinished portion of the Dirk Gently novel that Adams was working on when he died, and a collection of essays, speeches, and articles he wrote for various magazines and organizations. What emerges is a portrait of a funny, highly intelligent, gifted writer that we clearly lost too soon. The novel portion of the book reinforces this conclusion. Although slightly disjointed (it was assembled posthumously by his editor from the contents of Adams' hard drive), it still shows Adams' talent for keen observation, his flair for humorously-worded prose, and his knack for telling stories that actually mean something, under all the comedy. The end of the book is both sad and haunting. I was really getting into the story and was intrigued by the bizarre, tantalizing plot lines that he weaves together (in Dirk Gently tradition). I had just finished a rather interesting bit about a rhinoceros when I turned the page, hungry for more of the story...but there was no more. My disappointment became shock as I abruptly realized that we'll never find out what happens. The ending, whatever it would end up being, was locked in Douglas Adams' brain, the contents of which are, tragically, no longer accessible to anyone. I was a bit numb as I got off the plane re-reading the last page over and over, trying in vain to shake out a few unread crumbs. I think there is nothing sadder for a storyteller to leave behind than an unfinished story.

Inbound: Fast Food Nation, by Eric Schlosser
I can't eat anything anywhere ever again. It's that simple. Although the portion dedicated to grossing you out consumes a mere 20% of the book's length, that portion, like a Big Mac with cheese, will stick with you for a long, long time. The problem is that it does more than ruin just fast food; it calls into question every piece of meat ever consumed by any American anywhere. After reading this book, it seems to me that unless you are personally raising, feeding, slaughtering, and processing your own livestock, as well as personally growing and processing the food you are feeding to that livestock, then you do not stand a chance of ever eating an untainted piece of meat, ever. And don't go thinking that you'll just take your chances or avoid eating fast food, because I have three words for you: school lunch program. If you knew what was floating around in the meat they serve in school lunches, you would immediately enroll your children in private schools. In Tibet.

Oh, and by the way, if you think you're safe because you're a vegan, or because you don't eat at all on account of being pure energy or something, let me give you another little tidbit that is mentioned in the book: you can get E. coli infections from sitting on the carpet. Let me say that again, in italics, in case you were dozing: You can get E. coli infections from sitting on the carpet. Apparently this bacteria is so hardy that you can contract the infection simply by coming into contact with carpeting that has been contaminated. I found this extremely upsetting, as I had just spent an hour sitting on the carpet in the airport. Please, if you know of anyone with an E. coli infection who has ever been in or near gate F3 of the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, inform me immediately so that I can either visit a doctor or die of disgust, whichever comes first.

Please excuse me while I go bathe my apartment in bleach and then dine on irradiated civil defense rations.