Hah. So I was telling my mom about the Weakest Link tryouts (the story really is coming! It's just that I'm balancing and cropping 18 pictures while packing and the day's in a serious tizzy), and she told me how yesterday she went to the Hollywood Bowl (she lives in Los Angeles, as does most of the rest of my family) to sing the Sound of Music. Thousands of Sound of Music fans gather in the amazing amphitheater and they show the film along with subtitles, karaoke-style, as the crowd belts out the songs!

In a way, it's just like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, in that you dress up and sing along with everyone else, but probably unlike it in that there's no made-up verses, or Transylvanian transsexuals, although there's probably more virgins (that is, 'singalong virgins' in the audience, and 'virgins in the actual film.' I imagine there are more real virgins at an actual Rocky Horror night than at the Sound of Music deal (at least per capita (but then you never know, if they've been going to Rocky for a while...)) checking.. yup, one more paren ). Ahh, balanced parentheses... Well, that's all for now. I just wonder when singalong Moulin Rouge is coming...

PS: Visit Sing-a-long Worldwide if you want to find out about their other performances, or if you like cute feelgood flash navigation.

PPS: Digging deeper, it seems that they're in San Francisco, at the Castro from tomorrow, July 2 through the 7th, when they head to Philadelphia. Wish I could go...

Blah, what a title. Anyhow:

I came across a flash piece for Motorola's 'intelligence everywhere' initiative. As far as marketing pieces go, it's pretty nice, blending art and message. I wish more people would use low-key flash this way.

Working on Weakest Link story and photos. I'll have 'em up soon. Doing loads of laundry for the upcoming trip.

Meanwhile, check this out: A company called Transgenic Pets, LLC is planning to offer genetically modified non-allergenic kittens somewhere around 2003. They remove the protein that produces cat allergens. It's a cool idea, but it gives me the willies after seeing A.I.

The thing that weirds me out is the cat's sense of history: Will this cat have parents? Can you submit a sample for them to make a non-allergenic cat? Will there be two or three 'models' to choose from?

I like Kisa just fine thankyouverymuch, besides, she's about as non-allergenic as they come naturally.

So I'm going to head off to an open call for The Weakest Link at the Sony Metreon in about an hour. Judging by the 4 or so different ways that I heard about this, I'm guessing half the Bay Area knows and there should be between 2000 and 20000 people there.

why am I going? Well first, it's fun. Ernie's going to be there, along with Ken and possibly Min Jung. I need to get out and shopping anyhow. I have lots to prepare for my trip.

But another reason is just the numbers. Okay, this is scary, but ever since I took a crash course in Econ in high school, this is the way I think: There will be, say, 8,000 people there trying out for what I will conservatively guess will be 20 spots for next season's shows. That leaves a 20/8000, or 1/400 chance of getting onto the show from this call. Now once on the show, only 1 of the 8 people will actually win anything, so make that 1/400 * 1/8, or roughly 1 out of every 3200 people trying out will actually win a game. The prize money is typically anywhere from $40,000 to $100,000 so let's say $70,000. Therefore the opportunity cost of going to the tryout is the material gain divided by the probability of that gain, so $70,000/3200, or around $21. I'm happy to have someone pay me $21 for me to spend a few hours hanging out with friends and taking pictures, therefore it's not a bad idea to go.

Of course reading this, the whole point of this post seems to be that I'm such a geek that I have a higher chance of getting on the show, therefore throwing all this math into the drink. Ah well. What else would I be doing on a Saturday morning?

Things I hope to blog this evening, for your reading pleasure:

• Ammy's near death experience and my own premonitions of doom... (photos included)
• The cool license plate story (photos included)
• The possible reworking of a story I took down yesterday
• The Weakest Link recap (photos included)
• Spekkchecking
• A.I. mini-review (it's good, go see it.)
• ..more?

This is going to be an insanely busy weekend which, ironically, means I'll probably post more than usual. Hope you all have a good one!

Let me start, in the spirit of the Unreliable Narrator, by stating that this is all my own fault.

Okay, the abbreviated version: The way back machine is set to somewhere around October of last year. Through Gaskells and a Halloween party I get to meet a new friend through our mutual friend Frederick. Danielle has a lot of the features I admire in women, independence, a sweet personality, and a glowing smile. Do I talk to her? Yes. Do I go further than that? Nope. I figure, for various reasons, my life is a little too complicated at the time, and figure I'll see her at the next Gaskells Ball that December and I'll talk to her more then. December comes and goes: No Danielle. No biggie. A month or so later Frederick mentions that she's in a play in Concord, and we both decide to go. Along the way we count the number of women we've both been attracted to at one time or another in our 6 year acquaintence. Though the number is reasonable it's the correlation that's remarkable.

So the show was great. Afterwards Fred and I join Danielle and the cast for post-show munchies and we talk a little more. At the time I was about to go down to Austin for SXSW so we talk about getting together for something fun once I'm back. Of course, by the time I get back I'm swamped with finishing out the semester while being a TA and deciding what to do about grad school vs the rest of my life. I think that it's probably not the best time to pursue anything that would take the back seat from the outset, so I hold off.

Come May I graduate. Now I'm a little more free time-wise, but I'm going on a trip in a couple months with my family and a good friend who happens to be an ex-girlfriend.1 So I figure that it's probably not too bright of an idea to ask someone out on a date just weeks before you're going to be spending substantial time with an ex-girlfriend on a cruise with your family. That sort of thing can put a dampner on any heretofore blossoming whatever. So I wait. Meanwhile, at the June Gaskells Ball, Danielle's not there. A fairly regular bunch (about 30 people) go to Au Coquolait afterwards, around 12:30 in the morning, to grab some food and wind down. Guess who comes over and says hi right as everyone's leaving, as she just happened to be there anyhow? Bingo.

So now we're really close to the trip, and I figure I'll email her, debating whether it's worse to email her and suggest we do something once I get back from this trip, or if I should, after waiting 6 months, wait another few weeks. Well, I was actually going to write her today from work, only her email address wasn't in my palmpilot, instead sitting securely in Outlook Express on my powerbook at home (come to think of it, in an archive of outlook express, as my computer took a nosedive since then) but I digress. So I don't end up emailing her today, and when Emily, Ammy, Rick, and I go to see Fred in a production of Midsummernight's Dream, who should be there? Bingo. And she brought a date.

Okay, here's where I start a new paragraph, implying that the fact that she brought a date is some big plot twist; the sort of thing that, if it happened on primetime TV would be followed by a fade to black and a commercial for Snuggles Fabric softener (okay, daytime TV. Primetime would probably be for a Chevy Truck...). The fact is though, that it's really only a small plot twist. As I'm sitting next to Emily before the lihgts go down I think about how the 'Facts of Life' thing to do would be to pretend we're going out, but then I think why? Then I think that what would actually be the Shakespearian thing to do, then I get sidetracked.

So introductions were made (he was introduced as 'friend,' by the way) and I'm still stuck for a course of action. Writing now would seem like a pretty 'cause and effect' reaction (again, a Shakespearian response, only this time in more of a Jack Ritter vein), and the idea of waiting until after the cruise makes a minime pop onto my shoulder with a cricket bat and bop me upside the head, while asking what this object lesson has taught me.

The other thing is that this isn't a big-time crush or anything. I don't go to sleep thinking about her and waking simply happy that she actually exists outside of sleep, even if we don't really know each other. Instead, she's the quintisential opportunity, the person who, if I don't talk to her, effectively proves that I wouldn't talk to most anyone who didn't push themselves at me. That's a difficult thing to get over.

So option three of course is pining idlly to the void. I haven't really gone on this sort of thread here before, and I'm sure I've bored some, made others bump fury.com up from 'read once a week' to 'twice a week', and possibly made some of my friends uncomfortable. As long as I've been keeping a weblog, that is still a question I don't know the answer to.

Anyhow, it's pretty late and I should definitely get some sleep. I'm crashing at Ammy and Rick's tonight, so I can get to Yahoo! bright and early in the morning. The other story I'd like to tell is how Ammy came inches from instant, real, harsh and graphic death tonight, but the pictures are still in my digital camera until I make it home to my download cable, so it'll just have to wait (no the pictures aren't of the event, just the circumstances). To ease the little suspense I've built up, Ammy is fine, with just a medium-badly bruised and scraped knee, and a set of keys that was run over by at least two cars in the 30 seconds it took to retreive them.

Signing off for now. Have a great night/day and cherish the life you have right now, no matter what shape it's in or what form it takes.

---

Footnotes:

1. I have this tendancy (ability, gift, blessing) to remain friends with people I've dated. With one notable (but nevertheless unnoted as of yet) exception, I'm still friends with each girlfriend I've had, and am very good friends with a handful (over years, mind you. I'm not the player that makes me sound like).

Heya! The project poll is working now. Go and share your opinion on which project, past, present, or future, I should put at the top of my list!

Someone wrote yesterday, asking me about the official relationship between Fury.com and Yahoo!, now that I'm designing interfaces for them. The simple answer is that Fury and Yahoo! are completely seperate entities. I work for Yahoo! during the day (and whenever else) and I write for my own blog (and associated projects) in my own time.

No doubt I'll put together an OAQ or FUAQ (or, as I've read said: QTAFA) list eventually but suffice it to say that I'm being very careful to keep both my employer and my readers happy.

Seeing Gaiman speak tonight was great. He really knows how to tell a story, as well as write one, and American Gods will now have a new voice attached to it when I get the chance to read it.

The new, and working, poll will be up soon. Meanwhile, I'm puting together one last sitelet before cleaning my web house (aoliza and randompixel) become my priorities again.

When it comes to music, often I'll go months without buying anything new, then I might buy a CD after hearing one song once on the radio, or sometimes it's enough just to randomly hear the name of a (brand new to me) band in the air from two unrelated sources at almost exactly the same time.

Today's my Mom's birthday. I'd just like to take a moment to tell everyone here just how cool my mom is. She's the most independent and resilient person I know, has a source of energy I still haven't fathomed, and inspires everyone around her.

I love you mom. Happy Birthday!