L'histoire de sa vie

In the song “Putting Shame in your Game” the Beastie Boys rhyme: “I’m the king of Boggle, there is none higher, I get 11 points off the word quagmire.” Well while I’m not as good at Boggle as the Beastie Boys apparently are, one game at which I do excel is Taboo.

It started in High School, when I’d play the game with friends from my youth group. Someone would bust out the game and I’d put on my Taboo thinking cap. Next thing you knew, without fail, my team won. I have some vague memories of jokes being created from those games, something about “Hairy” Potter, and something about Oompa Loompas, but it’s too far back to recall fully. I do know that Jason and Maury were always on my team, and we’d always destroy the competition.

I was on Taboo hiatus for quite some time since then. It was only this year that I again picked up the buzzer and shouted out clues. It started at Thanksgiving. My team won. We played with a non-standard timer, so there was more time to shout out clues than usual. I broke the fourteen barrier, leaving others in the dust around twelve clues or fewer.

And again, only a few days ago, at my mother’s “Christmas party for the non-Christians,” we played Taboo. This time with the standard timer, allowing me only seven clues in one turn (my personal all-time maximum with the standard timer is eight), but twice in a row. My mother, who got a five and then a six, was the next closest competitor.

Of course, I would not have gotten to seven even once (does it surprise you that seven and even don’t rhyme?) without the invaluable help of my team. And by team I primarily mean my Aunt Suzy, who easily guessed at least 75% of the words I had. The other 25% went to my mom’s friend Andy, another valuable asset.

Nonetheless, I’m the king of Taboo, there is no higher, I move cards so fast they catch on fire.

On Sunday, I went grocery shopping, as I tend to do nearly every Sunday. I gathered my thirty dollars of groceries, including apples and boxed stuffing, both of which were on sale, and went to check out at the register. The cashier rang up all my items, hit the “student” button to give me my well-deserved 5% discount, and I then proceeded to swipe my credit card.

The cash register beeped rudely. The cashier told me my card had been declined. So I swiped again. Again, my actions were met by a rude beep. I swiped yet a third time, and yet a third time, the feedback informed me that my card would not be welcome at Met Foods that day. No biggie, I figured, I’ll just use my debit card.

I swiped, and the machine asked for my PIN. I popped in the familiar four-digit code, and heard the rude beep yet again. Uh oh. The cashier suggested that I swipe it as a credit card, so I did so, only to be met by the familiar E-flat tone. [Actually I don’t know nearly enough music to know what note it was. I just thought it would sound better if I suggested I did.]

Well obviously I had a serious problem. I usually don’t carry thirty dollars of cash on my person, and the machine didn’t want to take either of my cards. I swiped my mom’s card, which the machine accepted, and proceeded to call my bank, Bank of America. Here’s what I learned:

Some vendor (probably online) that has my credit card and debit card numbers was compromised (possibly hacked, possibly internal issues, who knows). They told Visa, and Visa told BoA. BoA canceled both of my cards and issued me new ones, sending an explanation and the new cards to my address on file. In Houston.

Well apparently the cards arrived in Houston, so claims my mother, but since I’m not in Houston, I would have no way of knowing this! Luckily, Bank of America, after asking me twenty different questions to ensure my identity, agreed to ship new cards to me in NYC.

Wow. What a nightmare. So for the next week, I have to either avoid spending, or use my mom’s card and transfer the cash via Online Banking. Not a big deal really, and I suppose it’s better this way than having my identity stolen, which is the alternative. Still though, I submit that there is little more embarrassing than having your cards turned down, with other people waiting in line behind you.

Facts in Five, a bookcase game, is one of my favorite games. The premise is this: there are five rounds in which you have five letters and five specific classes/categories of things to come up with for those letters. You have a minute timer (it’s actually like three minutes or something) running down. Scoring depends quadratically on the number of answers you have for each letter and for each category. Each player chooses letters and categories.

For example, one round might have “Diseases/Sicknesses – Human,” “Outlaws – Class Only,” “Fictional Characters – From a book,” “Botanical Objects – Edible,” and “Sport Forms – Team Sport.” Five letters might be T, E, J, O, and *. (* is a wild card.) This is an actual list of categories and letters that I played with recently, and below is the card I ended up with at the end of the time:

Anyway, the game is awesome. But that’s not what I’m posting about.

Crude Oils

So in the game, there is often a wild-card in which you can pick your own class and category entirely. My mom always picks “crude oils” because that’s her line of work and we clearly know nothing about it. Over the years, I’ve learned Qua Iboe and WTI, and my brother learned Dubai. But other than Q, W, and D, we were sunk. Until I memorized one crude oil for each letter. Unfortunately for me, my plan backfired in that my mom didn’t get a wild-card. But nonetheless, here are my crude oils:

Azeri, Brent, Cossack, Dubai, Ekofisk, Forties, Girassol, Hibernia, Iran, Jasmine, Kirkuk, Labuan, Mars, Njord, Oseberg, Poseidon, Qua Iboe, Ras Gas, Saharan, Triton, Urals, Vasconia, WTI, Xikomba, Yemen, and Zarz.

Memorize that list, and the next time you play Facts in Five, you’ll have a wild card that no one will be able to beat!

A continuation of my “Confession” series, modeled after Alana’s “Sunday Confessional.”

Imagine you sit down at a meal of steak, french fries, and sautéed vegetables. It looks delicious, and it probably is. At this point, I understand, most people would taste the steak, perhaps much a fry or two, and eat some of the vegetables.

But not me. See, with a few exceptions, I eat in order. That is, I finish one part of my meal before I move on to the next. In the example above, I would probably eat the fries, then the vegetables, and finally the steak. If the fries don’t look that great, or I’m really excited for the steak, I might mix it up, but in general, that would be my order.

In the picture above, I’d probably eat the chicken nuggets first, and the bread, followed by the potatoes or vegetables, and finally the cookie.

I think that when people realize that I do this, they think I’m crazy. I didn’t realize it myself until my mother pointed it out when I was younger, and at first, I tried to deny it. “I do not!” Eventually though, I grew to embrace my eating habits. Most think that my eating is irrational (like my basement fear), but I argue that it is in fact more rational than not! Let’s examine some common orders for why:

1. Steak scenario above: I eat the fries first because they are a finger food. Then I pick up one utensil (the fork) to eat the vegetables, and finally, I pick up the second utensil (knife) to eat the steak. Maximum utensil efficiency.
2. Chinese food with multiple options: last night I had Chinese featuring three different entrees, all on rice. I ate them in order, not for efficiency but for taste maximization. If I mix the chicken and the beef, I will not be able to fully enjoy the tastes of both.
3. Salad situation: If a salad is presented, or often a soup, I will eat these first, even though they may require one utensil when part of the remaining meal requires none. This is because in my head, salad (or soup) comes first. Dessert comes last.
4. Indian, etc, food: There are exceptions to the rule. Foods that require the same amount of utensils, that are better mixed together, etc, such as Indian food, are not generally eaten in order, but altogether.

When I was younger, my mom often made mish-mosh. This combination of multiple foods, in my mind, was amalgamated as one. Similarly, if foods touch on a plate, I don’t freak out. I may still eat them in order, I may not. But I am not against food integration or overlap.

Nonetheless, the next time you share a meal with me, don’t be surprised when I eat everything in order. I may be saving the best for last, I may be maximizing efficiency or tastiness, but in any case, I’m enjoying my meal the way I always have.

So I’m notoriously bad at first impressions. No joke. Friends, for example, have often come to me after some time to tell me their first impression and how they’re glad they made second impressions.

Recently I met the mother of a friend of mine whom we all call Kopin. Of course, that’s her last name, so when I met her mother, she said something along the lines of “Sam, or Kopin, or whatever you call her.” I jokingly said “Michal” because this is what I often call her due to it being her middle name. Of course, I had to take it further by telling her that Kopin doesn’t actually like the name. Imagine telling a mother something along the lines of, “by the way, I call your daughter by her middle name, which you lovingly gave her, because she doesn’t like it.”

I’ve found that my best friends are usually the ones that had the worst first impressions. For example, Alana, one of my favorite people from my year in Israel, says:

I initially disliked Nathan because my boyfriend didn’t like him. Yeah, it was really dumb. I remember he was standing in my way one day, leaning on some sort of a bench and creating an arch with his arm. Instead of asking him politely to move, I squeezed my way under his arm. And then I think he yelled at me and said I could have politely asked him to move. I rudely ignored him and at that moment decided it was him, not me, that was the rude party. I didn’t like him- it was dumb.

Joey, my roommate from the second half of that year and one of my best friends, and I first met in the airport on the way to Israel. I had spent a weekend in NY doing some mind-numbing “leadership” work and was tired and a little unhappy. Joey came up to me and introduced himself and I was cold and distant. He later told me his first thoughts were, “everyone is being so nice except for this douchebag.”

Amy’s first impression was less interactive, but nonetheless negative:

My first impression of you was on the bus to some sort of USY convention. You were singing quite loudly and I just remember everyone yelling "Nathan, shut up!"

My friend Addie insists that the first time we met, I grilled her on multiple topics, asking her ridiculous questions. Eventually, she claims I decided that she passed the test and I decided to be nice to her. We later realized we share the same birthday. (Donald Hall too!)

And of course, the first impression of all, from my mother:

I had you by c-section which of course necessitates large amounts of drugs. These drugs deaden everything but I was still awake enough to be aware of what was going on. In order to pull you out, they had to maneuver around my organs and (I found out later) were sort of moving them around. This caused me to get nauseous. Just as they pulled you out and said “It’s a boy!” I threw up.

Part One

So I need a notebook because often I have good conversations and on topics about which I could blog, but by the time I sit down at the computer, I have forgotten the day’s discussions. I like the Moleskine notebooks, because they are hardcover and they have the elastic band to keep them closed. This rugged structure appeals to my constant need to beat up my notebooks.

However, the cost is prohibitive. Twelve dollars is at least three times what I’d like to pay for a notebook. Factoring in the neat features, I can see why it would be a little more expensive than a regular notebook, but the cost is still a bit outrageous. The cheapest I could find online was $9.39 at buy.com.

And ten dollars is too much for me. (It’s just a notebook!)

Part Two

During my day off, I went to Rhinelander, WI, about one hour away from camp. We went on a Wisconsin River Cruise, which was fun and peaceful, and we went to a waterskiing show at Hodag Park. Between these activities, Linda needed to go to Wal-mart to get some fabrics, at which point, I wandered off into the cake decorating section. Shortly after, I decided to check out the Wal-mart notebooks to see what they had in my price range.

Upon first glance (likely due to its shocking color), I noticed a bright pink moleskine-style notebook. It was made by mead, and it was only five dollars! But it was blank paper, not ruled, and it was bright pink. They also had a bright lime green version. Above these two options was a grid paper version in brown. But no ruled paper.

I called over a sales associate who told me that she thought maybe new ones would come in that evening. I didn’t explain that I had travelled one hour to frequent her establishment. Instead, on the way back to camp at the end of the night, we went to another Wal-Mart, in Minocqua.

Minocqua: same story as Rhinelander. They had the exact same options (fewer cake decorating supplies) and they didn’t suggest when new ones would come in.

Part Three

“No big deal,” I thought to myself. “I can just find the notebook online and buy it there.”

No dice. Here’s a quick rundown of the steps I took and their results:

• Checked Walmart.com – No mention of mead products. Or for that matter notebooks.
• Checked Mead.com – Nothing resembling the product I found at Wal-Mart.
• Checked Google, etc – Nope. Pretty sure I imagined this product. But I did learn about other Moleskine knockoffs that are even more expensive. Ridiculous.
• Called Rhinelander Wal-Mart – Now we’re getting somewhere! The friendly sales associate, Shirley, gave me the information on the graph one (the ruled ones are still not in stock), including the UPC number.
• Googled the UPC – Nope. Product not found in database.
• Called Mead – Tim, the customer service associate, told me that this is in the line of products that “Wal-Mart calls us and says ‘Make us this product. We’re a monopoly so it’s only ours.’” Thus, the only place to buy this product is at Wal-Mart.
• Called Wal-Mart Corporate – 1.800.WAL.MART. Lakisha told me that this is an in-store product only and that it’s not available online. She took my name and number, but didn’t sound hopeful that the notebook would ever end up in my hands.
• Called my mom to get her to check the Houston Wal-Mart – I don’t know why I thought that would work. She just laughed at me.

Conclusion

So that’s where I am. No notebook, feeling dejected. I’m just going to buy a cheapo one-dollar pocket notebook in the end. I mean, I don’t really need my notebook to remain in pristine condition. I just need it to record notes.