Spoon-feeding the non-techies

The alleged talent of a product manager is to be able to bridge communication and thought between technical and non-technical people. This talent was best mocked in the movie "Office Space," and yet it is a valid yet ephemeral plus. Occasionally, I like to roll it out in full bloom, and foist in on a user population who hopefully get as much entertainment out of reading it as I do writing it. Here's my latest offering:

Team, A long time ago, perhaps centuries in dot-com years, a substantial portion of our Customer Support time was spent assuring clients and publishers that the variances between publisher-reported impressions and MOJO reported impressions were either minor, publisher mis-implementations, or simply misunderstood.

To illustrate this, I made an “Error Analysis Tool” (dart board) of six causes and said, “If you need an answer for your case right away, you can choose one of these because I assure you that one of them is right.” It wasn’t long before the clamoring for a less flippant and more elaborate (albeit not any more accurate) version of these cases moved Barak Ben-Gal, Director of No-One-Really-Knows-What, to write the original Discrepancies white paper. This was pretty – it had pictures and text boxes. It had credibility – it was thick. More importantly, Account Managers had something they could throw over the wall to clients and many times it answered their questions. Victory! 

Fast forward eight regular years to today, and the treasured white paper has become a relic. Much more has developed in our industry requiring explanation or analysis yet still falling into the big bucket of discrepancies. A young knight named Michael Hauptman joined the Company and has proceeded to deftly dispose of the old and write a completely new version of the document. This version is, I am pleased to say, delightfully concise, yet detailed. Accurate, yet comprehensible. It has a full mid-palette highlighting pepper and nutmeg with a long, lingering finish of smoky elderberries. In short, those of you faced with either diagnosing discrepancies or educating clients on them will find this one satisfying read. 

Accordingly, I have placed it on the client-facing Adserver documentation tab of Sharepoint. The direct link is here. If, as a creature of habit you cling to the Internal Documents link of Adserver, I am one step ahead of you. If you do not have the Firefox plugin for reading PDF’s, you can get that here. 

But if you ever want to see the original dart board, you’ll have to come by my office.

Thanks Mike, (achiappanza)

As my wife often says, I like turning something mundane into something fun.

Baseball. No longer the national pasttime, but still great

OK, I'm back. It wasn't an intentional hiatus, but I got lazy about handling it when Google released the new blogger and then things got busy.

Viewership for the World Series has been sinking like a stone for decades, and this year's matchup between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Tampa Bay Rays continues the trend.


It's a crying shame because baseball is a terrific game, and this year's matchup is one of the most appealing in years. I'll expand on both of those points.

Baseball is a terrific game. Anyone who's been raised to play it or at least has seen "Field of Dreams" has some idea of why that is. It is extremely different from most sports in that most others have a few things in common:

• Rectangular field with scoring at the ends
• Game clock
• Same equipment (or lack of) on offense and defense

Baseball has none of that. As such, there's a real barrier to entry for fans, especially if they haven't grown up playing the game. And as that requires special equipment and fields, the effort to do so becomes more and more to overcome.

Despite the ratings decline, the game itself has been doing very well for a few decades as you can most evidently see by attendance numbers and team sale prices. This can be attributed to a few things:

• New fan-friendly ballparks with attention to the quality of the experience beyond the game itself (food, views, attractions, location, luxury levels)
• The home run boom of the 90's, regardless of its various reasons. As the commercial says, "Chicks dig the long ball."
• Wild card teams in the playoffs and intraleague play. This is something Bud Selig got right.

But still, the game is hard to understand at its fundamental level, which is the batter-pitcher matchup. The best book I've ever read on the subject is Keith Hernandez's _Pure Baseball_, which is out of print, but you can still get a copy on Amazon.

This year's matchup is pretty good. Aside from rooting for my home teams (Giants and A's), I generally like teams who make the World Series that don't meet any of these criteria:

• A team with a top payroll, especially when that money was used on free agents. Money still has too much influence in baseball, and I don't like teams that have spent their way there.
• A team from a major media market, especially New York, because those teams get disproportionate attention anyway.
• Natural enemies of my favorite teams. That's pretty much just the Dodgers.
• Teams that have won more than one title any time recently.
  

Both the Phillies and Rays pass my test. They have acquired some players shrewdly (trade or medium-cost free agents), but for the most part they are homegrown players whose team is finally making it. The Rays in particular are a great story.

• The last expansion team to make the World Series. They've got a big history of not-so-loveable losing.
  
• Last place in baseball last year; chance to make first this year
• Great trading: Victor Zambrano for Scott Kazmir was a steal from the get-go, though Met fans who don't follow the minors (like my father in law) didn't realize it. Also, Delmon Young for Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett was gutsy, as Young was the #1 prospect by consensus a few years ago.
• Low payroll. All these guys came up with them. If they spend a little, they can keep that team together for years.

Right now the Phillies have the upper hand, and they have great players to root for too. Ryan Howard was asked his opinion of the Rays' five-man infield late in game 3 and he said, "Wow, I thought they were going to blitz." Off the cuff, and it's the funniest thing I've heard from an active ballplayer since hearing Mark Grace's explanation of slump-busters on Jim Rome's show. Chase Utley is not only a terrific hitter, but he made a fantastic tag and throw double play last night.

So I could be happy for either team. I hope it goes seven.

You wanted the best, you got the best!

(I just posted the following review of a KISS tribute album "Kiss My Ass" to Amazon. Just my little part in participating in Web 2.0. I gave it three stars.)

I've had this album for a while, but hadn't listened to it much. Now it's in my car and I'm developing stronger opinions about it.

First of all... I don't think there's another album where I disagree with so many Amazon reviews.

Second of all... some explanation of my grading. I believe that if you're going to do a cover, you have to bring something to the party to make it an interesting version and in some way better than the original. Note for note copies are worthless. Did you ever hear Poison's cover of Loggins and Messina's "Your Mama Don't Dance"? This to me is the worst cover of all time. They do nothing new, except smooth over any actual articulation of the lyrics, and they don't even bring the high heat. Frankly, if you can't rock harder than Kenny Loggins, then for God's sake, DO NOT COVER HIS SONGS! Please. This is not a high bar. Bottom line... three stars on my scale means "worth listening to" and five means "You just have to hear this."




OK, on to the review...

1. Deuce - Lenny Kravitz (Four stars)
The crutch to avoid on this song is depending on the percussive effect of the main riff. That is what makes this song unforgettable and distinctly KISS. Lenny not only doesn't lean on it, he omits it entirely. Instead, he puts in his thing: Those self-harmonizing two-line vocals. Keep the critical steady hard drumbeats and add the harmonica solo, and you have a song that enriches the canon. Good job.

2. Hard Luck Woman - Garth Brooks (One star)
I can't believe other people like this cover. By my criteria, it absolutely bites. Garth's version adds nothing. I have the distinct impression that he was so happy to be on a tribute album of a band he liked when he was a kid that he picked one that he could do in his style and "respect it" by doing nothing different. What would have been much much better is if Gene had landed Rod Stewart to sing it, as the original intention was to get him to record it in the first place. Gene's got such good business sense that I have to think he tried and it just didn't work out.

3. She - Anthrax (Three stars)
I don't remember too much about this song except that I felt that it was probably a pretty fair infusion of style and trademark sound of a band I don't listen to. Good drumming. Actually, there's good energetic drumming on this whole album.

4. Christine Sixteen - Gin Blossoms (Three stars)
Like "Deuce," it would be easy to lean on the piano part, but the Gin Blossoms pay proper respect by keeping it out of the intro and saving it for the chorus. You can't take it out entirely... it's just too important, but you can dial it back a little for flavor, and so they did. The readings of Gene's talking lines are a little drab, but they redeemed it at the end with, "I don't usually say things like this to girls your age... well, maybe sometimes."

5. Rock And Roll All Night - Toad The Wet Sprocket (Three stars)
This was the song I was most interested in hearing when I got the album. At first, I was very disappointed with the tempo change and the overall treatment. But then I decided that it was a bold move, and there's no point in trying to rock harder than KISS on this song. So Glen backed away from that challenge and went the other way entirely. Good for him.

6. Calling Dr. Love - Shandi's Addiction (Four stars)
This song starts with an entirely unrecognizeable intro, then clears the deck for one lone overdriven guitar than bangs out the main riff. Then they let the cowbell fall in ("I need more COWBELL!") and then a switch to a modern headbanger style; quite different from the original. I think with that you have the finest four-bar instrumental tribute and update to KISS on the whole album. That pretty much sums up the exultation of loving KISS as a kid and taking it home with the air guitar. Another treat is the odd vocals on the chorus. It's a call-and-response with one voice singing the line straight and another responding through a CB radio. I don't know who came up with that kooky idea, but it grabs you by the short hairs and makes you listen.

7. Goin' Blind - Dinosaur Jr. (Three stars)
This song is much heavier than the original, and that is for the better. The weight of the instrumentation and the vocals is an improvement for a song that depends on the sickness of the line "I'm 93, you're sixteen, and I think I'm goin' blind."

8. Strutter - Extreme (Three stars)
I have to say that I think Cerone and Nuno stole the show at the Freddie Mercury tribute concert with their version of "Love of My Life -> More Than Words." I think they have a perfect balance of respect for the source material plus adding their own emotion to the songs. Nuno changes the main riff to be unrecognizable, and he delivers on the solo. You think no one but Paul Stanley can bring it on "I know a thing or two about her" but Cerone does a good job.

9. Plaster Caster - The Lemonheads (Three stars)
I like that this song draws attention to an underrated KISS song. I had no idea what this was really about when I was a kid, but the idea and subtlety of "The plaster's gettin' harder and my love is perfection" and "And if you wanna see my love, just ask her" is great rock and roll lyric writing. Plus, coming from Gene (who cataloged all his conquests with Poloroids and notes about each girl's proclivities) it's perfectly ironic to write a song about a woman collecting her casts.

10. Detroit Rock City - The Mighty Mighty Bosstones (Four stars)
This song has several brilliant turns. The first is that it opens with the sound of a guy coming home to an answering machine message from Gene saying that they can't do this song because it's spoken for. When he gets to "You can choose ANY OTHER SONG and it'll be fine" they cut him off with the famous intro riff. Kudos to them for telling Gene to shove it on his own product, and to Gene for having a great sense of humor about it. Second, the vocal is a great tribute to Gene singing. I don't mean Gene Simmons' actual voice, but what The Demon would sound like if he actually sung. This isn't a Paul song at all in this version. Thirdly, any band that can pull off horns on the chorus and solo of Detroit Rock City has basically figured out how to jack into the Matrix. Good move.

11. Black Diamond - Yoshiki (Three stars)
Honestly, I think an orchestral treatment of Black Diamond is not all that inspired and misses the point. But they peg my own meter on doing something different, and I can imagine being a teenager again and putting it on for my classical-loving Dad just in hopes of having the joy of having him admit he likes a KISS song. Heh heh. You go, Yoshiki.

While this album has no five star tracks in my opinion (examples: "Top of the World" on the Carpenters' tribute or "U.S. Blues" on "Deadicated"), it is nonetheless a pretty good product. It does the job on having a lot of worthwhile covers.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

There’s been something bugging me about a buzzword I’ve been hearing for years. People refer to “verticals” all the time. What they actually mean is “industries,” such as travel, auctions, clothing, whatever. You might think that I’m just mad people are using an economic term to sound smart when there’s a perfectly good familiar word to use. Oh, if only that were all.

The problem is that they’re using the word wrong! In Economics, they taught us that vertical integration is the practice of buying up companies that are further upstream or downstream in the product process than you are. That could be an oil refinery buying up gas stations, or a clothing store getting into manufacturing their own lines. Horizontal integration is the practice of buying up companies that serve different segments of the same market you’re already in. Examples include AOL buying TimeWarner as another media company, or Honda deciding that they need to make an SUV too. If you’re talking about marketing web services to the travel industry, you’re only concerned about people selling to actual travelers. You don’t care about selling to Boeing because they make the planes or GM because they make the rental cars! Verticals is the wrong word! It’s horizontals!

Of course, people who use the term “verticals” can’t even tell you what a “horizontal” is. They’re stupid and they deserve to be punished. Or as Anton Le Vey said, "It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful."

Feedback?

Impeach Bush

Today's post is just a few sympathetic links to a new Harper's article suggesting that it's time to impeach Dubya as well as the corresponding item in the Daily Kos. If Clinton can be put on the stand for the Lewinsky trivia, then certainly Dubya ought to be facing at least as tough a gauntlet.

Let's all buy a copy of this Harper's issue and let the sale numbers speak for themselves.

Hello Joisey! Hello Philly!

This past trip back east gave me my first visits to New Jersey and Pennsylvania. So here's some observations:

1. Jersey isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Well at least this little town called Cranford is kinda cute.
2. East Coast train transit just kicks butt over California. Just like in Boston, Jersey is set up to take some big trains from the city, then explode them out in many directions. It is very practical to commute by train out there.
3. At the same time, these people clearly aren't interested in socializing on their train trips. If they can at all avoid sitting next to someone, they will. Check out this pic:
   

It's a perfect allocation of every three-seat row on the train with not a single person willing to sit in a middle seat. Nicetameetcha. Have a nice day.

New Jersey transit does a pretty good job though. You can get from Grand Central Station to Philadelphia for about seventeen bucks on NJT. That's a pretty good deal. Of course we only realized it after spending a lot more on the Amtrak ride.


Well, of course upon visiting Philly I had to do what every tourist does. Run up the Rocky steps and jump around.


That was goal #1. I also accomplished the other goals of seeing the Liberty Bell, the open market, and having a Philly Cheese Steak. The market was pretty cool (especially seeing the Amish run a pretty smooth operation), but the cheese steaks are nothing special. I prefer Jay's Cheesesteak on Divisidero.

The Liberty Bell is now housed in a full-blown Liberty Bell museum, complete with metal-detector security. It's nice to see the history of the thing, but unimpressive that all it's stature is purely iconic. It was just a city hall bell until it started going on tour and being pumped up to be some great symbol. And then it's got that big crack because it wasn't made right in the first place. And it's only about four feet across.

Still, I'm up for visiting just about any new place. I'd gladly spend more time in Philly.

12/31/05 New Year's Eve with Gov't Mule

OK, I'm going to finally get around to talking about my New Year's this past December. Wife and I spent late December and early January in New York City. I have always loved seeing a band for NYE, since doing with the Grateful Dead for their last ten years of it was so much fun. So I lined up tickets to see Gov't Mule, Warren Haynes' band at the Beacon, which is right on Broadway.

The Beacon is a fine old place, much like the Orpheum in SF with all permanent seats, a loge, and a balcony. We were in the loge, slightly stage left, row F. I had never seen Gov’t Mule before, but I’d seen Warren Haynes with the Allman’s, Phil and Friends, and the Dead. The only Mule tune I knew was a cover, “Soulshine,” although I know from setlists they do a lot of covers. The warm up wasn’t an opening band, but they did show video from an old ‘60’s show called “The Beat.” It was hosted by a white guy but almost all the performers were black. I saw Dusty Springfield and what looked like young B.B. King and Albert Collins. The cool thing was the girl dancers in the white go-go boots.

The band came on around 9:26. They’re a four-piece band, drums, guitar, bass, and keyboards. I didn’t recognize the first two tunes, but they seemed a little boring. But then they got loosened up, and a stagehand came on to flash us huge cue cards like “Don’t be such an assh*le, Sam” so we could sing along with the chorus. They played a very sweet slow tune that built up that we really liked, including a drift into “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” at the end. Then Warren switched guitars to another Gibson and he started noodling around, sounding like Jerry when he’s got the “waka-waka” sound going. I mentioned to Wife that he was sounding like Jerry, and then Warren launched into “Loser” and the place went nuts. “Loser” was great… it really rocked the house. They stuck a “Terrapin” jam in the middle, which was pretty cool. They finished the first set with “Train Kept a-Rollin’ All Night Long” around 10:35.

When the second set started at 11:10, we were completely taken by surprise as the curtain lifted to reveal a stage set up like the one from “The Beat.” The band all had black suits and ties on, and the keyboard player was wearing a big rasta wig. There was a four-piece horn section and two go-go dancers in white boots and colorful vinyl dresses (one red, one blue). There was one guest member of the band… a guy named Jimmy Vivino who sang and played a red and white Strat. Warren still hadn’t taken the stage, but after all the rave-ups, he walked on sans guitar, and also wearing a black suit. The place went nuts! The band kicked in to “I Can’t Turn You Loose” and he sang a killer lead on that. They followed with another old R&B cover, and then “I’ve Been Loving You (For So Long)” and Warren got handed his guitar from Jimmy mid-song so he could tear up the solo. This set went on and on with great covers, including “What Is Hip” and “The Letter.” That was a smokin’ great surprise! At midnight they counted down between songs and then balloons came down and they played “Night Time (Is the Right Time”) and Warren played the woman singer’s parts on his guitar.” The set closed with “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” at 12:15.


The third set was back to normal, although all the musicians eventually came back. They started at 12:50 with “30 Days in the Hole” and eventually covered “Folsom Prison Blues” as an instrumental jam and then “That’s What Love Will Make You Do.” The encore was “Hurts Me Too” and finally the second encore and last song gave me “Soulshine,” leaving no stone unturned, as far as I was concerned. I don’t think there could have been another place in New York that gave me as much as I wanted as this. They f*cking delivered! It was finally all done just before 2 AM.

Full set list
12.31.05 Beacon Theatre - New York, NY
Set 1:
Bad Man Walking
Lay Your Burden Down
About To Rage
Don't Stop On The Grass, Sam
I'll Be The One
Life Before Insanity
I'm A Ram
Loser >
Terrapin Station >
Loser
Train Kept A Rollin' w/ Danny on Guitar

Set 2(w/ Ron Holloway's Holographic Horns* and Jimmy Vivino on guitar):
Intro Theme (San Ho-Say) No Warren
Can't Turn You Loose Warren on Vocals Only, no guitar
Shake Warren on Vocals Only, no guitar
I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now) Warren back on guitar
Down & Out In New York City
What Is Hip?
Thelonius Beck Interlude
I Shall Return
Thelonius Beck Interlude
The Letter
Thelonius Beck Interlude
I Believe To My Soul
New Year's Countdown
Night Time Is The Right Time
Bad Little Doggie
Papa's Got a Brand New Bag w/ Danny on Guitar

Set 3:
30 Days In The Hole > w/ Jimmy Vivino
I Don't Need NO Doctor w/ Jimmy Vivino
Beautifully Broken w/ Jimmy Vivino
Effigy > w/ Jimmy Vivino
Folsom Prison Blues > w/ Jimmy Vivino
That's What Love Will Make You Do w/ Jimmy Vivino and Ron Holloway's Holographic Horns
Blind Man In The Dark w/ Ron Holloway

Encore:
Hurts Me Too w/ Hook Harrera and Alvin Youngblood Hart

Encore 2:
Soulshine w/ Ron Holloway's Holographic Horns and Jimmy Vivino on keys

*: Holloway Horns are:
Chris Battistone on trumpet
David Zalud on Trumpet
Chris Karlic on Baritone Sax
Ron Holloway on Tenor Sax

Links: More pictures and the music download.

Willie Mays Field at AT&T Park

Around the time that Pacific Bell Park (home of the San Francisco Giants) was getting rebranded to the parent company's name (SBC), my friend Daniel approached me for support on his grassroots idea to have the sponsors change the name to "Mays Field." Actually, his initial effort was to have everyone call it that regardless of what the owners name it. We're both longtime Giants fans, and naming a the park after Willie Mays certainly has a fan-pleasing air about it. However, it surprised him that I wasn't in favor of the idea.

It seemed to me that if SBC/Pac Bell was willing to kick in $50 million over 24 years to help support a privately funded ballpark in downtown San Francisco, then I'm all in favor of it. Why should I begrudge them their marketing value for the money? Willie Mays isn't ponying up any dough. I'll defend their right to have it called what they want just like I'd defend a kid at school to be called by his rightful name even if everyone else wants to call him "Dicknose." Principles aren't a question of scale, people, they're principles.

Well with the SBC acquisition of AT&T, the sponsors now want to re-brand it again, this time to AT&T Park. Daniel has similarly modified his plea, and is now asking for it to be officially renamed "Willie Mays Field at AT&T Park." So now I signed his petition and teased him that he finally realized my greater wisdom. He, in turn, said that he was so moved he had to lie down. He said he hasn't been so moved since Dravecky broke his arm. I'm sure his change of heart had everything to do with principles and nothing to do with having a snowball's chance in Hell of getting taken seriously by AT&T.

You can check out the Mays Field site here.

Billy Crystal - "700 Sundays" in San Francisco

One of the great things that Aforementioned Wife has brought into my life is theatre. You could count the number of professional productions I'd seen before meeting her on Mordecai Brown's hand. But since her family is so into the theatre, I've had many more occasions to go, often thanks to them. One such occasion was this past Tuesday, when Julie's father gave her a pair of tickets to the Billy Crystal "700 Sundays" show at the Golden Gate.

I knew I liked Billy from his work in TV and movies, but I enjoyed this immensely because it was so personal. It's Billy talking about his life experience growing up. By doing that, he connects to all of our experience growing up. As a person who likes to remember personal history (I've kept a journal every day since 8/31/76), I really appreciate the effort he put in to recapture that experience and share it with us. What I ended up seeing was not so much "Billy Crystal doing his professional entertaining thing" but "Billy Crystal using his talent and skills to reflect on the past the way I wish I could." He made a very stout effort to ignore his professional success and focus on his experience as Everyman. Probably especially more so if you grew up Jewish in New York in the 50's, but still. A notable and well-chosen exception to mentioning his celebrity was when he spoke about seeing his mother in the hospital when she had some memory loss. She said to him, "Hey, you're Billy Crystal. What are you doing here?" Man, I'm tearing up just remembering that.

It just so happens that his life as a kid had some exceptional moments too. His uncle was a visionary who ended up turning an electronics store into the Commodore Record label, thereby making a huge contribution to New York jazz and bringing that influence into Billy's life. He watched "Shane" while sitting in Billie Holliday's lap... how cool is that?

It was a great show. If you get a chance to catch it, then you should. If not, his book is probably a decent substitute and they've got it at Amazon. We sat in the front row of the loge, but I expect even the worst seat in the house is still fine.

Effective phone messages

I remember when phone answering machines were invented. Well, I don't actually remember when it was, but I remember the experience of everyone getting used to them. It takes several repetitions before you're comfortable with the idea of talking on the phone with no one talking back. My parents still leave messages that sound like they just realized they're on Candid Camera and they can't wait to hang up. But that's OK... they leave short messages that get right to the point. I, in turn, believe in a similar principle: most phone messages can have their meaningful content condensed down to ten seconds or less. It's in everyone's best interests if you just do that.

My wife is from an entirely different school of thought. She sees leaving phone messages as akin to having a captive audience. I'm pretty sure she gets it from her mother. They both start their messages as if they fully expected to reach a live person, and the whole idea that they haven't has thrown them into a tizzy, forcing them to recalibrate and share their thought processes with the machine while they get their sea legs. Here's a made up example from my NY Jewish mother-in-law, though it's really not far from the truth:

Essential content: "Call me on my cell - I have a question."

Actual message: "Oh. You're not there. Where did you go? Did you go to work already? Well I guess it doesn't matter where you went... you're not there, that's all there is to it. I wanted to talk to you about something. Call me back later... oh wait, depending on when you call me back I might not be home. I might be over at Paula's... you remember Paula. We used to go walking together when you and her daughter were just little girls. Oh what's her daughter's name again? You know what it is. I can't remember. We'd dress you up in these little red dresses and spend a few hours walking around the park. You remember that. Oh what was her name? I should really remember before I go over there. So I just happened to run into her the other day, and I hadn't seen her in years. It turns out she lives just right around the corner, can you believe that? So I'm going over for tea; that's why I might not be here. So don't call between 2 and 4, or maybe really not even before 5 my time. Oh wait, you could just call my cell phone and then I'd get it no matter where I was. Yeah, that's a good idea, just call my cell, and if it happens to be a bad time, I'll tell you. Or I'll just take a few minutes to ask you this other question. OK, love you Sweetie, don't forget to call."

Seriously, I'm not gonna listen to all of that. I press "save" somewhere around "Call me back later" and she can listen to it all. Julie wants me to listen to it all in case it ends with something important like "Now press 5 on the phone and save a hundred childen," but come on, it never does. I'm not wrong, am I?

I have a theory...

As my friends know, I have many theories. There is almost no subject too trivial for me to have a theory about. Here's my latest one...

A key indicator of a successful (romantic) relationship is the willingness of each partner to use the other one's made-up words.

Now the words don't actually have to be originally made up by the person; they could be historical family words that s/he just brought into the relationship. Traditionally, most families have words made up for bodily parts and functions.

In our case, a recent example is a word I made up to replace "dogs." I like addressing our two dogs as a unit, and I just felt like "dogs" didn't have enough syllables. So I started calling them "doggages," as in "Come on doggages, we're going for a walk." Julie took to the term, and so now they are The Doggages. It is an important part of the theory that words have to come from both partners... one-sided word generation suggests imbalance.

I am interested in more data points about the theory. I invite you to post to the comments.

Opening Day, part 2

Hopefully you either have worked in downtown SF, or you followed that Frank Chu link in my first post. Either one is key to getting the joke of my Halloween costume this year.

I've never been a big dress-up guy for Halloween, although I like the holiday. This year we were having a contest in the office, and I've been planning to do this eventually. When I walked into the main area of work, people didn't even say anything. They just applauded. That was cool.

At lunch time I took a walk down Market Street to see what kind of reaction I'd get. People either

1) Got the joke and smirked or commented
2) Thought I was actually Frank or
3) Had never seen Frank before and reacted accordingly.

I never did find Frank to take a picture with him.

Some folks on the WELL suggested that I get together a Frank Chu drill team for next year's St. Stupid's Day parade. That would be pretty funny. Post here with your contact info if you want to do it.

Opening Day

I had this experience on the bus a few months ago, and wrote about it on the WELL and e-mail. One person suggested I start a blog. I don't need all that much encouragement. So here's my true story from 9/29/05 to kick off my first blog:

Today on the 1 California:
I'm sitting next to the window and a large man, probably 50's with a grey pompadour and southern European descent sits next to me. He's got the kind of build that makes you think he may well have been Fabio-stunning a couple decades ago. And he's wearing what appears to be a weight lifter's uniform, complete with kneepads, Olympics-style. Dialogue, starting with him:

- May I sit here?
+ Sure. Are you going wrestling somewhere?
- No. Kickboxing.
+ Kickboxing? (Clearly too massive for kickboxing.)
- Yes. I fight people from all over the world. All over the galaxy. I have a license to kill.
+ Really?
- Yes. Humans are not good fighters. But Martians are.
+ Where are you from?
- I am from all over... Italy, France, United States. I am God. I’m from everywhere. I came here in 1947 and some people thought I was Jesus Christ. But I'm not; I'm God.
+ Well what are you doing here?
- I am fighting creatures from all over the galaxies. I am also bringing sunshine because sunshine helps clean up all the pollution. If I did not bring the sunshine, the pollution would kill everyone.
+ I suppose that's not very productive if you're God.
- Yes. I have responsibilities all over the galaxies.
+ Have you met Frank Chu?
- Who?
+ Frank Chu. He carries signs showing that he too knows about the galaxies. Maybe you should compare notes with him.
- Is he a big shot?
+ He knows about the galaxies, that's all I'm saying.
- Does he have bodyguards? I have hundreds, thousands of bodyguards, all beautiful women. Of all races and colors. I used to have more white women, but they got eaten by martians.
+ I don't know about the bodyguards, but he's not dead. That oughtta count for something.
- He can't be a big shot if he doesn't have lots of money.
+ What difference does money make to one who hops the galaxies? I gotta think that doesn't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things.
- I only talk to big shots. You should see the beaches on places like Venus and Jupiter. They're just like the south of France.
+ Venus I can see, but Jupiter's pretty cold. At least it was the last time I was there.
- When I go to Jupiter I look at the sun and bring more sunshine.
+ Say, why does God need to take MUNI?
- Do you know how many flying saucers there are out there, waiting to shoot me down with laser beams?
+ Ah, so you're on MUNI to protect yourself from being seen and targeted.
- There are a lot of flying saucers out there.
+ Are you saying that God can be killed by a laser beam?
- (Gets up for his stop, mumbles something nonsensical about the dangers of laser beams.)
+ Watch out for the laser beams!