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Upcoming Shows: Geography and (Halloween) Spelling

October 12, 2008

This Wednesday, in the Chelsea Market:

Next Saturday, now with (optional) costume contest — best nerdy/literary costume gets a prize! Just show up.

I am hosting a show as part of the first-ever Hysterical Festival

October 9, 2008

It’s not exactly on the mainstage, but that actually kind of matches the theme…

GEEKS AND FREAKS Get ready for something a little, well, different. A night of alternative comedy with Robin Gelfenbien (Sirius, VH1, NY Fringe Festival), Carla Rhodes (CBS’ The Late Show with David Letterman, Penthouse Forum, NBC’s Last Comic Standing), The O’Debra Twins (Bowery Poetry Club’s “Show & Tell”) and Jen Dziura (Williamsburg Spelling Bee, Chelsea Mind Games, McSweeney’s).

Saturday, October 18th
Ochi’s Lounge at 7:00 pm
353 W. 14th Street (at 9th Ave)

Tickets are $5 at the door plus a one item food or drink purchase from the discounted menu.

Catch the rest of Hysterical Festival’s Ochi’s Lounge shows online!

Post-Debate Omnibus Politics Roundup

October 8, 2008

I caught the last half of the debate last night after I finished a gig.

One astute reader summed it up thus:

Does McCain know any living people? EVERYONE he quotes is dead. He knows about nuclear power because he served on a Navy ship…….big whoop! I know about the grain industry because I baked a cake.

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Although I hardly hide my political preferences, I would sooner stab myself with a mascara wand than display this bumper sticker:

1980s Nagel portraits for Obama!

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I did notice during the Vice Presidential debate that the male candidate seems to have had more plastic surgery than the female candidate. This plastic surgery blog agrees.

Biden appears to have had Botox, has definitely had hair transplants, and clearly has had some major teeth whitening or perhaps even veneers. And it all looks fantastic. I am now endorsing plastic surgery for our nation’s politicians, regardless of gender.

During the VP debate, I actually kind of noticed that both Biden and Palin, on a totally superficial level, looked fantastic — which was nice, because it allowed us all to, hopefully, focus on the actual words coming out of their actual mouths. (In contrast, last night, Obama looked normal, McCain looked super-awkward and shifty without a podium — his weird pacing and fidgeting was reminiscent of Nixon walking on the beach in dress shoes).

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This $12.95 Obama Halloween mask is currently ranked #123 in Amazon Toys & Games, while the five-cents-cheaper McCain mask is ranked #113. I’m not sure what this means — would a person be more likely to dress up for Halloween as the guy they like or the guy they don’t like?

Interestingly, a Mitt Romney mask is ranked #213,990 in “Apparel,” a couple of different Sarah Palin masks are doing pretty well, Hillary masks are still going strong — but no one has bothered to even make a Joe Biden mask. Dear God, that would be a boring Halloween costume. Unless you went with someone dressed as Sarah Palin, and just constantly asked her if she could see anything new happening in Russia.

One of the First Cassettes My Parents Ever Bought Me

October 6, 2008

I waited in line at Starbucks today to the maddeningly-gentle sounds of circa-1970s James Taylor.

When I was about 13, I had to have four teeth removed from my tiny little mouth before I could get braces.  The teeth were yanked under local anesthesia.  It was one of the worst experiences of my life.  After many, many shots into my gums, the dentist had one leg up on the chair I was in, using his bodyweight to try to wrench teeth from my mouth.  Thank god this guy didn’t go into obstetrics.

At the previous appointment with this guy, he had suggested that I bring my own music to listen to during the procedure.  I brought the most peaceful, relaxing album I had: James Taylor’s Greatest Hits.  

Now, every time I hear “You’ve Got a Friend,” I want to punch a dentist.

The Dish or the Surgery

October 6, 2008

I was buying paper towels at Duane Reade when a woman asked a non-native-English-speaking employee where the rubber gloves were. I was about to tell her myself, but I would have been wrong, as it didn’t occur to me at that moment that there are more than one kind of rubber gloves.

The helpful employee said, “For the dish or for the surgery?”

She looked a little startled. “For the surgery,” she said, and they went off together to medical supplies. I was pleased that the imperfect use of English didn’t stop the job from getting done.

(See also, “Help Wanted Pizzaman” and NIGHTLY MAKE SEX AT GRASS!)

Quote From My Brother Brian, Sent Via Text, 7:55 p.m.

October 4, 2008

“You blog like old people fuck… with constantly decreasing frequency and effort.”

Sorry about that, folks!  It has been true, lately!  I have been dealing with some Personal Life Changes. 

Mersenne Prime Numbers and This Morning’s Correspondence with My Dear Mother

September 29, 2008

This morning, my mom sent me two articles: Woman finds bat in coffee, must be treated for rabies and UCLA group discovers humongous prime number.

My mother then commented that she understand prime numbers, but not Mersenne prime numbers.

This is the same woman who once called and asked me to remind her how to find the circumference of a circle. I told her I would, but why on earth did she need to know? Turns out she was buying trim for a round tablecloth. That is, she had an ACTUAL REASON to need to know the circumference of a circle, and she had ALREADY MEASURED THE RADIUS OF THE TABLECLOTH. Most people would just, you know, buy a bunch of trim and have some left over.

So I ended up writing this email:

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Hi Mom! How cool. I had never heard of Mersenne prime numbers, but I get it now. This is actually really neat.

A Mersenne prime number isn’t a different kind of prime number — a prime number is just a prime number. It’s actually more of a WAY to find prime numbers. Or rather, it is a description that fits SOME but not all prime numbers, and these prime numbers just happen to be the easiest ones to find.

A Mersenne prime number is found using the observation that, if you want to find a number that NOTHING goes into, take a number that LOTS OF STUFF goes into — and then just subtract one and you’ll f– it all up.

For instance, lots of stuff goes into 60 (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, etc…) Subtract one, and you get 59. Now NONE of the things that went into 60 are going to go into 59, so there’s a pretty good chance you just found a prime number! Lots of stuff goes into 120, and 119 is prime! How cool.

Mersenne prime numbers, when they pick a number that “lots of stuff goes into,” specifically pick powers of 2 to a prime number. As in:

2^2 (that’s two to the second power, which looks weird in an email) = 4
2^3 = 8
2^5 = 32
2^7 = 128
etc.

When you subtract one from these numbers, they’re all prime: 3, 7, 31, 127 (although this is not guaranteed to work every time, just a lot of the time). So if you kept going, you’d have a pretty efficient way to find more. For instance, 2 to the 11th is 2,048. Subtract one to get 2,047. I thought that might be prime, but it turns out that 23 and 89 go in (at this point, you kind of need a computer program to do this for you). 2 to the 13th is 8,192. Subtract 1 to get 8,191. Spend a bunch of time making sure nothing goes in, and you’ve finally found a big ol’ prime. (I just googled “prime number 8191″ to check on this one — the internet has lots of lists of prime numbers).

So if you had a powerful computer, it could calculate 2 to a very large power, and then it could subtract one, and then it could test that number to make sure nothing goes into it, and that would be a lot faster than the computer just testing every big number in order.

Yay!

Jen

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While we’re mathing it up, here is a photo of the winner of last week’s Math Bee, Viveca Gardner (center), with hosts Soce and me, and runners-up Syd and Rich.

Obamarama: Musings

September 29, 2008

I gave another $250 to Obama after the debate.  I felt that he deserved a reward.  Once, in high school, I won a big debate tournament and my grandfather sent me $50.  I was so excited to have $50 at once and to be acknowledged that I wanted to buy something I’d be able to keep as a memento, so I went to OfficeMax and bought a really fancy $25 pen and used it throughout the rest of high school and college.  It was navy and gold and very thin but also very heavy, and it made me feel that prestige would be available to me in the future.  I had hope that class in America could be glossed over with possession of the right office supplies.  

My Glamorous Life

September 29, 2008

I handwashed all my bras in the sink.  I tried to make it more pleasant by cranking up my iTunes, but then I realized that I hate all the music I own and I can’t think of any kinds of music I like.  I opened a bottle of wine and then realized with some embarrassment that I had purchased a twist-off.  Followed it up by watching The Office on my MacBook.  Pet the cat til it bit me.  Worked on two different ways to find the area of a regular octagon.

animals in their natural habitats

September 26, 2008

I have transformed into a horrible cliche.  Witness:

• Ponytail
• Dartmouth sweatpants and hoodie
• Whole-grain vegan cookies
• Sex and the City DVD, precisely chosen from complete-series set 
• Cat that likes to spoon 

Also caught up on my flossing this evening.

ceci n’est pas une counter

September 26, 2008

I totally did not realize that “over the counter” meant that you can buy the morning-after pill on Drugstore.com.  For $49.99.  Plus, I assume, overnight shipping.  

(I know this because I was buying hand soap, black hair dye, and face-firming night creme on Drugstore.com, and the sidebar recommendations said, “May we suggest: Plan B Morning-After Contraceptive Pill.” I wonder what item in my shopping cart triggered that one).

National Punctuation Day

September 25, 2008

Woe is me: I missed National Punctuation Day!

I also could have written, “Woe is me; I missed National Punctuation Day!”  However, a colon can be correctly placed before not only a list, but also an explanation, thereby making either option correct.

Hahaha

September 22, 2008

Sorry for the lack of posts lately.  But enjoy this!

Obama to Nation: “Fuck this shit, I’m outta here”

Obamarama: Dorky But Informative Campaign Update

September 17, 2008

I have a hard time even understanding who these “undecided” voters even are, but apparently 10% of voters are still up in the air. Do they live in caves? Midwestern caves? Anyway, I would like us to reach them. We have 20,000 new Democrats registered this year! Yay! Here’s a thing to do. I did! (Clicking on the donation button actually takes you to the aforementioned “dorky but informative campaign update”).

Of Watch Batteries, Notaries, and Laissez-Faire Economics

September 15, 2008

Does anyone know where I can get a watch battery changed in Manhattan? (Note: In my experience, all watch batteries are changed by Korean-American small business owners. Am I wrong?)

My inability to find a place to have a watch battery replaced also reminds me of my incredible difficulty finding a notary public when I need one. I mean, there are lots of notaries public in the outer boroughs, often located in those shops that say something on the awning about “business services” and contain, inside, one creaking Xerox machine, one computer offering internet access in five-minute increments, and some vague promise to help you with your immigration paperwork.

But it is very hard to find a notary in Manhattan. Now, don’t be an asshole who Googles “notary public Manhattan” and posts the link. Seriously, try actually going and getting something notarized. Half the places you call are like “Oh, we don’t really do that anymore.” The other half are like, “The notary is only in on Tuesdays.” The internet will lead you to believe that Kinko’s offers notary service. They do — provided by one guy, at one Kinko’s (the one in the Empire State Building), whenever that guy happens to be working. I have something I need notarized, and I’ve been carrying it around for weeks, hoping to walk past a business offering said service. In Murray Hill, I did find an H&R Block with a sign about notary service; I went in, and was told, “Oh, he’s not here today.” Of course.

Do you know why this is? Because it is illegal to charge more than $2 for a notary signature. Therefore, businesses have little incentive to offer the service. It is simply not profitable. THIS IS WHY COMMUNISM DOES NOT WORK. Imagine if it were illegal to charge more than seventy-five cents for coffee — I would certainly not be able to patronize a Starbucks on every corner (something I very much like to do), because there would have been no profit motive to build the stores. And don’t be an asshole who posts that you wish it were illegal to sell coffee for more than seventy-five cents and you liked Manhattan back in the good old days before Giuliani when all the chain coffee shops were actually crack houses in which junkies drank Cafe Bustelo that they brewed inside the empty skulls of crime victims. I will beat you with a carafe of soy milk in one hand and skim in the other.Communism doesn’t work.

The notary dearth is the Soviet bread line of Manhattan.

Politicalaged again!

September 12, 2008

I like to get my political news from extremely hot men (which, it turns out, is not that hard to do).

On a related note, yesterday I walked past an electronics store that had a TV playing in the window, and on that TV was Obama, and what Obama was saying was being close-captioned for the hearing-impaired, except that everyone who’s deaf or has been to a gym knows that closed-captioning is freaking awful. Is there no one who can listen and type with greater accuracy than the monkeys at keyboards who do this job? I saw the Pope in closed-captioning once and the caption made a reference to a “litter gee.” As opposed to a liturgy. Anyway, Obama was quoted as saying, “People should not be politicalaged down!”

Casual Encounters with Grammar

September 12, 2008

An astute reader forwarded me this Craigslist Casual Encounters post (thanks, Stella!):

DISCRETE versus DISCREET — typos bug the sh*t out of me - m4w

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Reply to: pers-832048841@craigslist.org Date: 2008-09-08, 1:11AM EDTit’s just a personal pet peeve… i can’t stand people that can’t write properly. i mean, there’s informal posting to message boards, but can we please keep to SOME standards? they’re, their, there. “definately” drives me crazy.the newest one while browsing the casual encounters is DISCRETE versus DISCREET. we’re all paranoid and therefore prefer DISCREET encounters. … on the other hand, DISCRETE is for, like, mathematicians that talk about discrete versus continuous numbers, etc.now, with that out of the way, is anyone interested in a discreet NSA relationship with a laid-back mid-30’s asian guy? i’m looking to hook up for the occasional boinking. (yes, boinking is a silly word, but i think CL readers might flag the post if i use other words.)reply back because deep down you’re a geek. but on the surface, you’re kinda horny right now. tell me about yourself, and don’t forget to include a pic.  

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 I once had a Dartmouth professor change the word “discrete” (which I had meant to say) in my philosophy paper to “discreet,” which made no sense in context (as it wouldn’t in most philosophy papers).That being said, horny Asian dude, it’s “people WHO can’t write properly.” Not “that.”That is all.

If you can’t express it with SuperPoke, the terrorists have won

September 11, 2008

Facebook just sent me the following notification:

Jane Doe has remembered 9/11 with you. Check it out!…

OR always remember Jane! … OR Super! Poke back!

Or, instead of “remembering forever with” Jane, I could “bodyslam,” “have margaritas with,” or “throw Chuck Norris at” Jane.

All they need to add is “put her pet’s head on a stake in front of” and “show sympathy for her miscarriage to” and Superpoke can now replace all human emotions.

Someone else wins the nerd prize

September 10, 2008

I am a big nerd, but I cannot possibly compete with a rap about the Large Hadron Collider. 

Photo Post

September 10, 2008

From Chelsea Mind Games. Our Vocabulary Tournament is tonight! Between this and a few corporate and nonprofit spelling bees, I am almost a full-time game show host.

I don’t actually design the t-shirts myself.

The back room at Mind Games makes me sweaty.

Math winner Tim (middle) with runners-up Keith and Andy and my co-host Soce.

Trivia winners “The Freeze Rays” and my co-host Michael Malice.

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Recently Written

• Upcoming Shows: Geography and (Halloween) Spelling
• I am hosting a show as part of the first-ever Hysterical Festival
• Post-Debate Omnibus Politics Roundup
• One of the First Cassettes My Parents Ever Bought Me
• The Dish or the Surgery
• Quote From My Brother Brian, Sent Via Text, 7:55 p.m.
• Mersenne Prime Numbers and This Morning’s Correspondence with My Dear Mother
• Obamarama: Musings
• My Glamorous Life
• animals in their natural habitats

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