feklar's Journal

3:14pm: Oblivion, grrlgeeks are the best and why consoles suck :-)
So, after watching J's son play oblivion, I got the urge to play again Friday evening.  However, I already played the game through when it came out and wasn't excited enough about the vanilla version to do it again, so I started modding (wiki), and modding (downloads), and modding (silly stuff), oh yeah, and modding (FCOM).  Gods only know what I was thinking to try FCOM--probably the ad copy got me a bit excited ("shatters previous barriers in the Oblivion mod community by letting you play four of the largest Oblivion "overhaul" mods at the same time." More (original, player-made) monsters, more fights, more weapons, more, more, more!!!). 

There are fabulous new user-made quests, lovely landscapes, lovely new eyes, hair, elves, faces, and races. 

And best of all new sexy and fun clothes!  Even the guys have some hot outfits.  Unfortunately these outfits do not fit the game's original not-so-hot bodies.  The one labled "vanilla" is what  comes with the game--you can see why a body replacer is needed, right?  Skinny, bony, mud brown underwear, yech.  For better or worse there are a lot of female body choices, I went with Exnems--she has a bit of muscle and a cute little tummy.  Also, the most scandalous outfits, armors, (yeah, right "armor") and tattoos (you can even give her a boob job).

Sadly, though not unexpectedly, there aren't many options for male characters.  Actually, there's only one, Robert's.  Fortunately, it's a good one.  Yes, I went with muscular.  And one you have Robert's bods, you can get the good stuff:  Boners!  Yes, you too can make slashy, horny PCs.  I don't know who AlienSlof is, but I think I'm in love with her for the 'coffer o' boners' alone, forget the mesh.  And yes, she is also the maker of the male nipple rings and other hot stuff, such as the sex animations--"Works with male and female partners" LOL.

I have actually spent most of the last 72 hours modding, maybe 5 playing and most of that play was to see if a mod broke the game (so far I've had naked men, invisible mages, overkill superpowered enemies (due to a f'd leveling problem) and random crashes.  Last night I finally (I hope) got a stable version going with FCOM levelled/fighting, a slew of new weapons and armors, and Exnem and Robert bodies--the basics, eh?  Now to add in the sexy endies...er armor.

Yeah, getting started on a PC is a pain, but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun on a console without the mods.

3:38pm: Wallet stolen
So, this morning, I get an email from BOA, telling me there has been "Irregular bank card activity" on my account.  So I look up my account and indeed, there has been purchases this morning that I did not make.  So I call them up and make a claim and I asked how did they know?  And the lady answered, there were purchases outside of my regular pattern.

What are these purchase outside of my regular pattern?  $600 at a Wholefoods.  Yep, the alarm was set off by groceries.

At least I got a laugh out of it all.

3:45pm:
So, it's that time of year again: Center City Sips also known as Wednesday night discount cocktail hours!

June 3 through August 26, 5-7 pm.

Enjoy $4 cocktails, $3 wine, $2 beers and half-priced appetizers at the participating bars and restaurants listed below. Individual bars and restaurants will determine which drinks and appetizers are on special. Bars and restaurants marked with a * will be offering a 15% dinner discount for those staying past 7 pm.

Raw seems like a really good deal with some of the more interesting drink options:
Beer
Yuengling Lager, Miller Lite, Coors Light
Wine
House Red, House White
Cocktails
Sake Tango (fruit infused sake), Pink Bubbly (vodka, champagne, cranberry, pineapple), Leblon Sour (cachaca, watermelon schnapps, pineapple, sour mix)
Appetizers
California Roll, Spicy Tuna Roll, Pork Gyoza, Shrimp Shumai, Chicken Bites

13 seems to have the most generous food options:
Beer
Coors Light Draft, Seasonal Draft Beer
Wine
La Terre Chardonnay, Beaulieu Vineyard Cabernet
Cocktails
13 Cosmo, Leblon Breeze
Appetizers
Garlic Chili Shrimp With Rice, Cheese Steak Hoagie Pizza, Pork Slider, Wedge Salad, Seasoned Fries Served with Mustard & Ale Sauce, Jerk Chicken Skewers With Pineapple Salsa, Beef Empanadas With Fresh Hot Sauce, Mango Mojito Sorbet

3:30pm: The dishes I would go back for?  The Butifarra, Mato Y Miel and the artichokes.  Also the frittes if I could get them without the mussels.

3:06pm: Max Brenner Chocolate Review

MB seems to have a kind of negative rep with foodies, but I work a couple of blocks from the CC Philly site and I love chocolate, so I kind of had to get there as soon as I had a free lunch time.  I went by myself for lunch and I definitely wanted dessert, so I only ordered two small plates and didn't spend a lot of time, but here are my impressions:

Entry:  They are pumping a weird artificial candy scent around the entrance.  I didn't like it, but fortunately you can't smell it once you are in the seating area.  Interesting factoid:  Disney did this too for their sweets and snack stores, but their scent was much better--even if the store didn't sell chocolate it smelled gloriously like chocolate...it was kind of a cruel tease. 

Decor:  I liked the whole Willy Wonka vibe with the pipes of '100% Chocolate' winding around the ceiling to the food prep area.  The menu reads like a normal Marathon/Continental type high-end diner, but most of the seating and tables are cafe like so they might be a little small for 3 or 4 people to order a full meal.  There are more chairs than banquettes, but they are comfortably spaced apart which is nice. 

Service:  I went a few days after they opened and they weren't too crowded, so they were tripping over each other to try to serve somebody.  Still, everyone seemed nice, friendly and prompt.

Food:  I had the half-order of the chicken-bacon rolls, which was pieces of chicken breast wrapped in bacon in a slightly spiced ranch dip.  Each was the size of a small sushi roll with 4 for a little less than $8.  They were very yummy.  Seriously, how could they not be yummy?  Wrapping anything in bacon makes it better.  I guess there could be a risk of overcooking to make them too dry, but they were perfectly cooked.  I could eat some more right now, in fact.  I also had the Vidalia onion rings with the chocolate ranch dipping sauce.  These were ok.  I like fresh made onion rings and the vidalias worked really well, but the sauce didn't work as well as the spicy ranch on the chicken.  Also they were $8, so it came out to about $1 per ring which seems a bit much.

Dessert:  I had the S'mores ice cream sundae.  I don't always want ice cream but that day I did.  I also don't eat nuts and that was the only one without nuts.  I asked about changing the chocolate gelato it comes with to a different ice cream and the waitress looked very uncomfortable.  My guess is they are resistant to changing their recipes.  My opinion of the sundae is mixed.  Each ingredient tasted fine, the ice cream and gelato were very good, but the balance of sweet to neutral or salty flavors was off.  I am a sundae topping fiend with a bad sweet tooth and I thought there was too much going on with too much of the same uniformly sweet and gooey flavor (white chocolate, marshmellows, marshmellow fluff).  Still, I would definitely go back to check out their cakes and waffle desserts.  And have more chicken wrapped in bacon.

General note:  There were a lot of women with toddlers and baby carriages (good thing for the spacious aisles), so there was a lot of child noise, not all of it happy child noise.
 

10:22am: recent books: Peeps, Anne Stuart's Ice Blue and Ice Storm
So, I've read several books lately--which means my hands really ache and are prone to numbness right now. I don't know why holding a book leads to carpal tunnel issues, but it does for me.

Yesterday, I read Anne Stuart's Ice Blue and the first half of Ice Storm. They are obviously fast reads, but they are also the kind of candy I like: a little bit of action, a little mystery, a little sex. They are a little light on the setting and environment description and the heroine tends to (conveniently) not be looking at the fight scenes, but it's fun and fast reading candy.

My only real quibble With Ice Blue is that the hero works for this mytery spy committee that has decided it's better to kill the heroine rather than risk her spilling secret beans to the bad guys. Ok. But then when her younger sister (who has no beans to spill) is kidnapped, the head of the committee--the person with all the secrets (presumably)--sneaks into enemy headquarters to rescue her, because the death of a 17 year old innocent is too much to tolerate, a 26 year old innocent, no problem, we'll kill her ourselves, but not a 17 year old. Why didn't they just take them both into protective custody in the first place? For me, the plot would have worked better if there was doubt about the heroine's loyalties. It wouldn't have changed the book much, but if they feared she was planning to work with the bad guys, a lot of the initial conflict between her and the hero (and all the hero's and his boss' guilt trips about 'condemning an innocent') would have seemed less contrived.

I have to admit, the thing I loved most about Ice Blue was the hero's cousin Reno--whom she acknowledges was named after a video game (unnamed--but it's Final Fantasy VII) character. If you've read the book, you can see she borrowed a bit more than his name:



I'm hoping he gets his own book--it would be totally fanfic.

Ice Storm is about the head of the spy committee--Isobel--and her past love/hate, international super bad guy, Serafin. I'm only halfway through, but I'm guessing he was really deep undercover, pretending to be an evil bastard on the orders of the committee or some 'good guy' country. Again, it's a fast, fun read, a little bit of action, a little mystery, a lot of UST, no sex yet. My main quibble with this one is everyone keeps saying how dangerous and skilled Isobel is, yet she's spent most of the book just going along for the ride. I'm hoping she kicks ass at least once, but I'm guessing it won't happen.  I do like these an am interested in reading the rest of the series.

I also recently read Peeps by Scott Westerfeld -- as other reviews have noted, it's good until the last 2 chapters which changed it (for me) from cool mystery-horror-noir leavened with parasite geekery to happy-go-lucky Buffy-style superteens. Still it was a fun read.  Loved the parasite geekery and how each parasite forshadowed some part of the vampirism parasite. 

Then I read 2 JD Robbs -- that's a pic of the author in the top banner. Oracne disagrees, but I think she's purposely cosplaying as the female detective heroine of the series. The cool conceit of this series is that it's set in 2058 and there are flying cars, talking computers and easy intersteller travel. Yes, I don't know how all that happens in 50 years, or even the 60 years from when the first book was written. The heroine is an old-fashioned, tough talking, hard-boiled cop that would give Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz, NYPD Blue) a run for his money. This is the 6th or 7th I've read and the conceit is starting to wear a little thin. Partly because the heroine is such a miserable, angry bastard I'm not sure why people love her as much as they seem to--I think the author has hit a rut, I thought the heroine was less 1-D in the first books.  There is a good reason to go through a team of hero/ines as in the Ice series--it keeps the characters from getting stale.  OTOH I like that Robb's heroine does actually kick ass--she can back up her tough talk.

11:57am: Meetup Brunch group fail
So, I've been on this Meetup Group-- http://www.meetup.com/Sliced-Cantaloupe-Brunch-Bunch/ which has a lot of great meetups planned.  The founding of it was kind of weird--the founder was part of the Foodies group--she planned many of the brunch meetups for them, then split off and took most of those planned meetups (I believe that was consensual with the Foodies owner, if weird).  I had already rsvp'd for most of those meetups--they were all posted in a clump and I responded--so I switched groups and started attending meetups.  A few more meetups were posted, some of which I RSVP'd for, others I didn't, others I was waitlisted for, one I de-RSVP'd because I felt weird about having so many RSVPs when the group was suddenly growing.  The owner never asked people to unreserve themselves and she actually told me I didn't need to unreserve the one I did.

So this morning, another invite comes in and I respond.  The next minute I get an email saying

"The Organizer of Sliced Cantaloupe Brunch Bunch has changed your RSVP for Come Say "Bon Voyage" to Summer on September 20, 2009.

Your RSVP is now: Waiting List"

It's one of those automated fill in the blank emails, so I was like, Huh? Act of system or act of group owner? I post a note to that meetup with the above text and asked what was going on.  I also said if the organizers wanted to rotate members to change up the crowd, to please say so directly. 

I was posting on the fly while working, so I remember or have the exact wording of my note, because it was almost immediately deleted.  Then I got this email:

Charlotte:

 

In order to be fair to ALL members of the group, the organizers reserve the right to monitor RSVPs and the waiting list. Not everyone is in front of the computer all day or has an RSS feed. I have received NUMEROUS complaints from other members who never get to attend because by the time they get home and get on the computer, all of the spots are taken. You, with rare exception, have been able to RSVP immediately for every event.

So in the spirit of fairness, we have waitlisted you in order to allow other members a chance to attend.

 

Now, for your comment on the event page: I am asking you, kindly, to refrain from posting such comments. If you have issue, email me directly and I will respond.

 

Denise, Trish and Ruben

 

 

To which I responded:

Um, I wasn't even sure if it was a system burp of automated emails or what.  If something's wrong with the system, people post errors and ask about them. 

 

Of course it's your right to rotate the group, I just asked to be told directly or have it be part of the official notice about the meetup.  I think having a rotating schedule of invitees might be a good idea.  I think that would make everyone more comfortable and feel less like we have to reply as soon as we see the email.  Another option would be telling people they have to wait for 2 or 3 meetups after a successful RSVP before they can RSVP again.

 

I actually have not been that fast off the ball for most of the recent ones--most of my RSVPs are that clump you posted all at once, so it was easy to reply to all at once. 

 

I already took myself off the black sheep one (which you told me I didn't need to do) because I felt too 'greedy' and would have been happy to unreserve some of the others if you asked.  Others (El Vez, Vesuvio) I chose to wait or decline because I've been there several times.

 

Please don't take this wrong, because I do enjoy the group, but your response feels defensive and taking my question off the message board changes my initial impression from "system burp" or "policy I just wasn't aware of" in an unpleasant way.  Again, I think it's perfectly fair to ask/tell regulars not to RSVP for every meetup, but I think doing so openly would make things clearer and fairer to everyone.

Yes, the last paragraph isn't exactly politik, but by this point I'm getting the feeling that it's more personal rather than about the good of the group.  I felt this way 1) because I got a very negative vibe from Denise at the last meetup, and 2) because her email seemed defensive, in the "I feel a little guilty/embarrassed about what I'm doing" way that made me think changing my RSVP but not the other 'quick responders' had suspect motives.  I then went and deleted about half my RSVPs to demonstrate I mean what I say.  I then spent the next few hours in meetings and interviews, and not obsessively watching my email (contrary to expectations), so I just check in and see this email:

FYI, this was timestamped 13 minutes after the above email:

Charlotte:

 

I've had lengthy discussions with the other organizers and we've taken your comments and suggestions into consideration. While we definitely appreciate your ideas about how to run the group, we feel very uncomfortable with what just transpired. In this age of instant communication, your post to the event board went up as I was writing my email to you to explain why we changed your RSVP. I apologize that I didn't have the opportunity to hit the "send" button before your post went up, though I still feel that it would have been much better if you had contacted me directly. The three of us have interpreted the tone of your comment as incendiary and challenging which is why it was deleted from the board.

 

We think that you have interesting ideas about how to run a group and think that maybe you ought to consider starting your own dining group. If nothing else, it would allow you to appreciate the challenges that organizers face.

 

That being said, we still feel uncomfortable and think that this may not be the best group for you. We appreciate all of your attendance, but we have decided together, as the group organizers, to remove you from the group. Perhaps another dining group would prove to be a better fit for you.

 

Thank you again.

Denise, Trish and Ruben

Organizers

So, they had lengthy discussions in the 13 minutes between emails.  To be honest, my gut reaction is this really means, "Thank you for giving us an excuse to dump you while letting us feel like the good guys."

Just for the record, I've also noticed that the first 4-6 people on any RSVP are all her friends.  I assume she sets them to yes before publishing it.  That's her prerogative, she's paying for the meetup, but it makes me want to cry "Bullshit!" to all the "fairness" crap.  If you want to have a gathering with your friends and a few hangers on, just say so.  Sheesh.

I have to admit Denise is probably not someone I would like or be comfortable around 1-on-1.  When I first saw her at a meetup, I was relieved because she's on the heavy side (probably about 50 lbs less than me) and I was worried about being surrounded by skinny, trendy foodies.  It turned out I had fun, but she was the one I had the least in common with.  Having only been to 3 meetups together I felt it was pretty mutual--she seemed at best uncomfortable around me or at worst just disliked me.  At the last meetup, there were only 5 of us left of about 12 people and she said she was $30 short.  She was panicking and recalculating and recalculating.  So I got an extra copy of the bill and tried to do a separate calculation to see if we matched.  At some point she told me to shut up.  It turned out she had her bag or a menu or something on the extra cash.  This left kind of a bad taste in my mouth and the negative vibe was strong enough that I had actually thought about dropping out, but I figured the meetups were large enough that we didn't really need to be near each other, so who cares?  She still plans great gatherings.

Do I feel hurt that I've been summarily evicted form the group?  Of course.  It's like the next step in a long line of societal rejections in my life.  OTOH, I am frustrated that I had found a couple of people I enjoyed chatting with at the meetups, even if I didn't particularly like her.  She's very lively and charming, but we have nothing in common.  She's also very appearance conscious--hair, face, nails, clothes, shoes, all "done"--which I am the antithesis of. 

Should I bother responding to the final email?  The first thing I did was delete it.  Then I felt annoyed about leaving her with the last [smug] word.  I want to respond with something like, "Well, at least it's not personal." 

5:38pm: Respects mah authoritay!
Note at the bottom of some spam:

Privacy Notice: We respects your privacy. We never release your e-mail address to third parties. You are receiving this email as part of your subscription because we feel this research is of interest.     

R-E-S-P-E-C-T-S.  Find out what it means to me.

10:06am: ROTFLMAO--Giant sperm, enormous gametes, sperm pumps, oh my

4:37pm: Anita Blake review
A coworker just compared the later, smuttier Anita Blakes to..."It's like going to a frat party, and you wake up in this pile...it's just nasty."  <LOL>

5:31pm: People have sometimes asked me what I mean by MBA-speak and/or what my MBA boss writes like when I say it seems good on the surface, but then you realize it's not English.  Apparently a couple of grad students have come up with a computer program to do the Sci-speak of my boss' MBA speak.

Excerpts From  http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55756/

An open access journal has agreed to publish a nonsensical article written by a computer program, claiming that the manuscript was peer reviewed and requesting that the "authors" pay $800 in "open access fees."

***
Davis generated the paper, which was titled "Deconstructing Access Points," using a computer program -- called SCIgen -- created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He and Anderson signed the work using pseudonyms (David Phillips and Andrew Kent). The two listed the "Center for Research in Applied Phrenology" (CRAP) as their home institution on the paper, which featured fictitious tables, figures and references.

****
Davis said that last week the journal notified him that it had accepted the manuscript, which contained absolutely meaningless statements typified by the first few lines of its introduction: "Compact symmetries and compilers have garnered tremendous interest from both futurists and biologists in the last several years. The flaw of this type of solution, however, is that DHTs can be made empathic, large-scale, and extensible. Along these same lines, the drawback of this type of approach, however, is that active networks and SMPs can agree to fix this riddle."

/\
/\
OMG!  That's exactly what she writes like!!

5:00pm: Amusing Things in my Inbox
Headline from The Scientist's feed: "Tumors can cause depression"
Wow, never would'a guessed that one.

I also like this announcement: "Philadelphia Atheists May Meetup"
Think they got atheists confused with agnostics? Ok, it's actually the month of May, but still funny.

Finally in the Scientist: http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/55727/ review of Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution: "5. Sex is absurd. It costs a small fortune to find a partner, transmits foul venereal diseases and parasitic genes, and randomises successful allele combinations. Worse, sex requires males, viewed by implacable feminists and evolutionists alike as a waste of space."

I love seeing men maligned for evolutionary reasons.  It makes up for all that "men are naturally sluts and women naturally monogamous" bs.

1:39pm: Star Trek Meme
'Tis the season and all that. I did in fact see the new ST at the KOP Imax--getting there was an adventure in itself. Overall I liked it.

Your results:
You are Spock

Spock 65% Jean-Luc Picard 60% Data 59% Will Riker 55% Worf 50% Deanna Troi 45% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 45% Mr. Scott 40% Mr. Sulu 40% Geordi LaForge 40% Chekov 35% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 30% Uhura 30% James T. Kirk (Captain) 20% Beverly Crusher 10%

You are skilled in knowledge and logic. You believe that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Click here to take the Star Trek Personality Quiz

1:19pm: funniest fricken vids I have seen in a while
This one is brilliant. It's a sims vid set to my favorite Naruto opening song. It's a variety of anime characters fighting and flirting and dancing. The immpressive thing is how close the Sims are to how the real characters look. Also most of their actions and responses are in character. It's just really great. I didn't know Sims was this flexible in terms of clothing and movement (tho' the anatomy physics are a little awkward in places):



The creator:
atom-bunny.insanejournal.com/2009/05/10/

Snatched from sidewinder:

1:00pm: mildly embarrassing factoid
After the better part of 8 years in the Harry Potter fandom, I just realized last night that Knocturn Alley is "nocturnally." 

I mean Diagon Alley was pretty obvious, but I never really looked for puns elsewhere.  Doh!

11:47am: K/S anyone?

Thanks to Maura for bringing this to my attention:
Where No Man Has Gone Before

Yes, what does Newsweek do to celebrate the new Trek movie?  A web-article on K/S fiction.  LOL

I like the double entendre of the title, because slash is so predominantly a woman-thing and it's a quote from the opening monologue.  Though I know some people will read it as homophobic (i.e. gay men aren't real men).

And no, I am not the Charlotte quoted in the article. 

2:41pm: Self- indulgent
I started my period yesterday, so I am kind of sleep and self-indulgent today.  I really want something to chew on...and chocolate.  I want chocolate.  Preferably with cake or possibly something soft and chewy and sweet, but not too sweet, under it.

Went with oracne, barberriene and MK to Caribou for Dining out for Life last night.  Had a very good salad with a wonderful goat cheese and baby beets.  Excellent steak and brioche bread pudding.

Mmmm, now I wand some aged Gouda...

Read a review for a place called Magic Kingdom of Dough.  I want to go there too.  Hot Juicy Buns--steamed buns filled with a bit of meat soup.   Mmmmm.

10:13am: Sleep Disorder Clinic
I had an appt at Jefferson's sleep disorders clinic yesterday. I was primarily there to consult about doing a sleep study for sleep apnea. But while I was there I figured I would mention my insomnia. This actually turned out to be pretty interesting, because it turns out I'm not an insomniac, I have delayed sleep phase syndrome (DSPS). And yeah, they want to do an apnea sleep study.

I hadn't heard of DSPS so I looked it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_sleep_phase_syndrome

It was really interesting to read this, it's one of the few times I've read something and felt like I could check off each paragraph going, "Hey, that's me!"

1. There is an intractable delay in the phase of the major sleep period in relation to the desired clock time... Check
2. When not required to maintain a strict schedule, patients will exhibit normal sleep quality and duration...delayed, but stable, phase of entrainment to local time. Check
3. Patients have little or no reported difficulty in maintaining sleep once sleep has begun. Check
4. Patients have a relatively severe to absolute inability to advance the sleep phase to earlier hours by enforcing conventional sleep and wake times. Check
5. Sleep-wake logs and/or actigraphy monitoring for at least two weeks document a consistent habitual pattern of sleep onsets, usually later than 2 a.m., and lengthy sleeps. Check
6. Occasional noncircadian days may occur (i.e., sleep is "skipped" for an entire day and night plus some portion of the following day), followed by a sleep period lasting 12 to 18 hours. Check

***

Some features of DSPS which distinguish it from other sleep disorders are:

People with DSPS have at least a normal - and often much greater than normal - ability to sleep during the morning, and sometimes in the afternoon as well. In contrast, those with chronic insomnia do not find it much easier to sleep during the morning than at night.

I thought it was kind of funny that I just mentioned this the other day. I actually keep my bedroom shades open in the hope that sunlight in my eyes will wake me. It hasn't really worked yet, but finally that's "normal."

People with DSPS fall asleep at more or less the same time every night, and sleep comes quite rapidly if the person goes to bed near the time he or she usually falls asleep. Young children with DSPS resist going to bed before they are sleepy, but the bedtime struggles disappear if they are allowed to stay up until the time they usually fall asleep.

OMG, I have so many detailed memories of lying awake in bed because my parents made me go to bed around 8 or whatever they thought was appropriate. My earliest such memory is from when we lived in New Jersey and we moved to TN when I was 4 so that was pretty early. My earliest memories of TN are of playing with a digital clock--I could see it in the dark and it was by the bed. I didn't quite understand how the numbers were changing so I used to play a game to guess where the next glowing bar would appear.

Often, sufferers manage only a few hours sleep a night during the working week, then compensate by sleeping until the afternoon on weekends.

While I don't like being called a "sufferer," this is completely me.

People with DSPS tend to be extreme night owls. They feel most alert and say they function best and are most creative in the evening and at night. DSPS patients cannot simply force themselves to sleep early.

Again, this is a running joke in my office that my best work time is 5PM to 3AM. Unless I'm up against a deadline, it's hard for me to do anything useful before 2 or 3 in the afternoon.  I have trouble being social before 10 or 11 am.  One of my co-workers recently said he thought I liked the thrill of an all-nighter--it's hard to explain that it just works better for me.

Failed tactics to sleep at earlier times may include:
maintaining proper sleep hygiene (I don't nap, don't drink caffeine after the morning, don't exercise or eat before bed, don't read or do anything else in my bed, etc.)
relaxation techniques (useless)
early bedtimes (a good way to stare at the ceiling, develop parental resentment, and write epic novels in my head)
alcohol (no effect)
sleeping pills (no effect)

DSPS patients who have tried using sedatives at night often report that the medication makes them feel tired or relaxed, but that it fails to induce sleep.

Yes, and the weird thing is trying to explain being tired but not sleepy.

...people with DSPS are unable to fall asleep before their usual sleep time, even if they are sleep-deprived. Research has shown that sleep deprivation does not reset the circadian clock of DSPS patients, as it does with normal people.

Another OMG, every time I do an all-nighter my co-workers expect me to just go home and sleep and while I'm happy to have the free time, I won't be sleeping.

Lack of public awareness of the disorder contributes to the difficulties experienced by DSPS patients, who are commonly stereotyped as undisciplined or lazy. Parents may be chastised for not giving their children acceptable sleep patterns, and schools rarely tolerate chronically late, absent, or sleepy students and fail to see them as having a chronic illness.

Kind of like being fat. The interesting thing is my high school eventually gave in and let my mom check me in late at least once or twice a week--I was usually ok by about 10 am. One of the reasons I think Drinker was happy to lay me off is most of them were early birds--9 am was late for them and my 10 am was unforgivable.

While I can't say this is life-changing, it is kind of validating to know I'm not nuts or undisciplined.

11:31am: Sleep in The Scientist.com

Sleep is very interesting to me because my natural inclination is to be up for 18-20 hours and sleep for 10 hours.  Since this is not possible as a modern adult, I am an insomniac and continually sleep deprived.  I also seem to be an anomaly in that I don't need it to be dark to sleep--I prefer to keep my shades up.  Also the only time I have ever needed less than 10 hours sleep was when I worked a night shift.  I worked 1am to 9am, went out and did stuff, then slept 6pm to midnight.  I have often wondered if I found this to be such a comfortable schedule because I wasn't inverting the work day--most shift workers go home, sleep and then are up for hours before work.

Anyways, I found the introduction to the Scientist's Sleep articles interesting--especially his comments on the similarity to rodent sleep habits and non-industrialized human sleep.  Sadly, it was more interesting actually than the research. 

http://www.the-scientist.com/toc/2009/4/

From the article:

Sleep takes up around a third of our lives, and is an object of fascination during the other two thirds. "I dreamt that..." is surely among the top 10 conversation topics of all time.

Given this, it is surprising how little attention is paid to the anthropology of sleep. Intriguing (but too little) work has been done on sleep practices in nonindustrialized societies,  and there has been some engaging speculation about sleep patterns; it all points to our Western conventions as being a behavioral outlier.

We sleep alone from an early age and do everything possible to minimize sensory stimulation and isolate ourselves from the external environment. Perhaps this helps explain why the same poll found that "one-third of Americans are losing sleep over the state of the US economy and other personal financial concerns." Other cultures tend towards "multiple and multiage sleeping partners; frequent proximity of animals; embeddedness of sleep in ongoing social interaction; fluid bedtimes and wake times; use of nighttime for ritual, sociality, and information exchange; and relatively exposed sleeping locations that require fire maintenance and sustained vigilance." I feel that I'm missing out on the richness of the experience.

On first reading of the two features on sleep in this issue, I was skeptical of the use of rats and mice as good behavioral models of what I presumed to be the standard human sleep behavior. But the sociality, polyphasy, and gradations in alertness in rodents seem rather similar to that described in most humans, making extrapolations more comfortable.

10:57am: Harry Potter books
I finally read Deathly Hallows last week.  To work my way up to it I read all of them again in order over the course of the week.  It was actually pretty interesting.  I will be posting a few things I though interesting in no particular order.

1.  Someone commented to me about how Draco is never described as attractive, yet everyone assumes he is.  I have always been annoyed by how JKR tends to equate physical abnormalities and/or unattractiveness (bad teeth, acne, hairy, bulgy eyes, general bigness and fatness) with stupidity and/or evilness.  Even the 'good' characters (Neville, Hagrid) who are not conventionally attractive are described as clumsy and stupid.  It's not until Neville goes into hiding and loses weight that he's suddenly competent.  

The Draco comment made me realize that JKR actually describes very few characters in terms of being attractive or pretty.  For the most part she describes features, without saying whether they are pretty or ugly or in between.  Given this and given how much detail she goes into for people with unattractive features, since the only thing she has to say about Draco is that he has grey eyes, white hair and a pointy face (in other words, roughly the same amount of description and lack of judgement on his attractiveness as Harry and Ron get), I think it is safe to assume he is no more or less attractive than Harry or Ron.

After reading the books, I went through and did a count of people who were explicitly described as attractive.  It's not a very scientific survey as I did the counts with a search function--I have them in hard copy but was reading eversions to make life easier.  The books don't really start to describe people (especially girls) in terms of attractiveness until book 4.  I like to think this is reflective of Harry's own growing awareness of other's physical attractiveness.  It's an amusing thought--the books going through puberty; but also clever writing.  Anyways the half-assed survey results:

Guys (Handsome):
B1:  NA
B2:  Young Tom Riddle, Gilderoy Lockhart
B3:  Sirius Black
B4:  Cedric Diggory, Madame Maxime (not really a compliment for a female)
B5:  I seem to have skipped OOP, or there was nothing to count
B6:  Firenze, Tom Riddle Sr., Young Voldy,Bill Weasley
B7:  Sirius, Grindelwald

Gals (Pretty or beautiful):
B1:  NA
B2:  NA
B3:  Cho Chang,Madame Rosmerta
B4:  Hermione (at the ball), The Patils (at the ball), Veela, Fleur
       (Described as a Veela), Narcissa Malfoy (Nice-looking (if not for expression))
B5:  I seem to have skipped OOP, or there was nothing to count
B6:  Blaise Zabini’s Mother, Fleur
B7:  Lilly Potter, Fleur, Fleur’s Mother, The 2 Ravenclaws, Ginny
 

12:32pm: Book: Remnant Population by Elizabeth Moon
I read this fairly quickly over the last two days. Overall I enjoyed it, but I thought the last third of the book detracted from the pleasures of the first two-thirds by being about as subtle as a brickbat in delivering its message.  This review gives a pretty good overview of the plot.

The story is very simple but also hard to categorize and describe. It's one of those books that says a lot with few words. Laconic authors often feel parsimonious to me—their worlds lack sensual detail or their characters are two dimensional—but RP is one of the rare few that I actually found engrossing. Moon created a rather soul crushing history for Ofelia with a few short lines sprinkled in the text (she never defied her parents again after whatever they did to make her give up her scholarship; she wouldn't hide in the bathroom because it was always worse if her husband had to drag her out of hiding).

There are hints of some communal pleasantness. The community made extra meals available for the sick, the women working in the sewing rooms seem to have a nice old-fashioned sewing/chat circle vibe. But overall, the lives and culture of the colonists seem rather bleak and repressive—not because of the many disasters that kill them off, but because of what they do to each other. Again, major events (like the murders of the liberal doctor and the town slut and the colonists’ conspiracy to cover them up) are covered in a few sparse lines. Ofelia is so embedded in the colony’s misogynistic culture that she seems to feel only an indifferent, “too bad, she should have known better” sorrow for the doctor and none for the slut. In truth, I am not sure how horrible the colony was because Ofelia is not an entirely reliable narrator.

The chapters where Ofelia is living on her own, free for the first time in her life, are a breath of fresh air. These are the chapters I enjoyed most. There was one section where she is painting beads and thinks if she had let herself play more as a younger adult, she might have been a better mother. That section really hit me as the best message in the book. It was a natural, organic realization and it really moved me. I think Moon did a good job of not making Ofelia into a paragon and I really enjoyed watching her discover the joys of playing and self-determination.

The chapters where Ofelia meets the aliens and learns to communicate with them are what they are. I empathized with Ofelia’s annoyance that they were intruding on her. But they were interesting and amusing “day in the life” type glimpses into what it might be like to be on the receiving end of alien (or anthropological) study. Ofelia and the aliens learn to communicate with each other fairly easily, which is all right by me as that could have been boring and repetitious if it went on too long.

At times, the presentation of the aliens as half toddler, half noble savage reminded me of certain condescending interpretations of race and colonialism.  But I liked the sections from the alien POV—their conversations feel alien with an interesting communal stream of consciousness.  I have to take dispute with the cover art, though: why do they have owl faces? They aren’t really described, but Moon does mention they have lips—so, no beaks. I pictured them more as lemurs.

The final section where humans come back to the planet were heavy-handed. Moon didn’t make Ofelia a paragon, but she had no such qualms about the noble savages—I mean aliens. The aliens and the new humans are fairly one dimensional in this section. Basically the message of this section is that westerners—I mean humans—have forgotten the importance of respecting their elders and that it takes a village (of elders) to raise a child. Fortunately, the aliens are there to show us a better way by treating Ofelia with more reverence than any human ever did. I’m not saying it’s a bad message, just awkwardly delivered. Also, I think after seeing Ofelia discover the joys of living for herself, to have her existence, indeed the whole purpose of society (at least a higher functioning, happier society), be defined in terms of reproduction and childcare was a letdown. Thank god for babies, if it wasn’t for them, we’d have no reason to exist, much less have a society.

The new humans especially annoyed me. It makes a certain sense that in a colony setting or a city tenement, humans might revert to repressive gender roles enforced by violence and peer pressure. Though I have to wonder why there are horrible, crowded city tenements in civilization with power plants that can make energy (and “fabricators” that can make anything else) out of sewage and trash. If anything, the poorest of the poor should be farmers and foresters, as food and wood seems to be the one thing they can’t make out of nothing.

However, the human expedition was an academic, scientific and diplomatic group. The second in command was supposed to be a woman. Yet the two women from the group act like servile nitwits and engage in the same peer pressure repression of Ofelia’s self-will as the women in her colony and childhood. Yes, I understand that educated academics can be as petty and ignorant as the rest of us, but… These are anthropologists, linguists and xenobiologists. Shouldn’t they have a little training and self-awareness about imposing their culture and cultural expectations on others?

Also, I’ve always found it really hard to swallow (in this or other stories) that a culture that has FTL capabilities and is presumably descended from our own culture has the gender norms of the 1970s. (The book was written in 1997.) I’ve never walked into a room and had someone expect me to serve them a drink, yet hundreds of years from now I would be? When the male leader of the human group is killed at the end, it’s a man who takes over—not the woman who was the nominal second in command. In fact, this woman is so out of touch with herself, she has to be told by Ofelia (wise old woman that she is) that she is in love with and wants to have babies with the guy who takes over. Again with the friggin’ babies, don’t these FTL-travelling academics have test tubes?

Anyways, the end of the book is kind of fast and has a lot of hand-waving. I’m especially curious (not really) how the aliens magically start mass producing goods without the negatives of industrialization.

2:44pm: Governmentese for the masses
So while updating my company's UNSPSCs ("The United Nations Standard Products and Services Code^® (UNSPSC^®) provides an open, global multi-sector standard for efficient, accurate classification of products and services.") I came across the following...while looking for "technical support": 

42312501 Mammary support binders

So is this a product or a service?  Should I have a poll?

There is also "42312503 Scrotal supports", but apparently no scrotal binding, which just seems unfair.

1:15pm: Fanfic recs, mostly HP, some SGA and HL

So, last night I was talking to somebody about Harry Potter fic and I was reminded of a lot of the stories I had loved from that fandom.  Which was good, because the last few books kind of turned me off.  I never actually read the last one and probably will never read it.  So, I looked up a lot of these old stories to refer to her.  Sadly, I found a lot of them were missing or in locked journals.    The advent of LJ really made finding fanfic a pain in the fricken ass.  If I'd known then what I know now\--i.e. what a pain LJ fandom is--I would have set up 4 or 5 LJs.  One for me to actually use and one per fandom.  As it is, to open up a SGA or HP only LJ, I'd have to go back and ask for access to all kinds of authors and groups who I only look at once in a blue moon.

Looking at these fics as made me want to reread a lot of them, so I'm reposting them here.  I'm not as big of a Harry/Draco fan as I am a Snape/Anybody fan, so it was a lot harder to remember those, but the friend was a H/D fan, so there are a few here:

One of the best H/Ds I can remember (and find):  I've read and reread Transfigurations (an H/D):
http://trickster.org/res/transfig.html

Actually, anything and everything by Resonant is good (and she's old enough to have an actual website):  http://trickster.org/res/

I also like the Familiar--it's quite sweet for a H/S, during the bulk of which Harry is a frog:
http://trickster.org/res/familiar.html

Astolat (formerly Lady of Shalott) is another of those old-school writers with an actual web-page.  I think I've liked everything of hers that I have read from many fandoms.
http://www.intimations.org/fanfic/

The Weather Series is one of the first H/Ds I read and I think it is considered a bit of a "classic":
http://www.intimations.org/fanfic/hp/AWeatherOfTheHeart.html
There are 2 sequels, with an eventual happy ending.

Astolat's top 6 favorite stories (including a Gladiator and Aubrey/Maturin one) are all good.  This SGA one is one of my (and apparently, her) favorites, funny and sweet and satisfying:
http://www.intimations.org/fanfic/stargate/lifetime_event.html

This may be the Harry comes to help Draco one you were referring to:
http://www.silververse.net/hp/tissue.htm

Here is another H/D I liked--set in San Francisco--I loved the Virgin (ala airlines) portkey service conceit:
http://www.queerasjedi.net/emma/hpfic/lmh1.html

This was a favorite HP story (H/S)--the story has an excellent adventure plot and good world building following H and S as they are researching and developing a new form of magic:
http://www.squidge.org/~kali/hp/cmi.html

A funny, romantic story:
http://inkstain.inkquill.net/isf/archive/4/themedean.html

This one always makes me laugh--Snape is an inanimagus (as opposed to an animagus), hence, being an occasional table:
http://predatrix.slashcity.org/fiction/occtable.htm

I liked most of Dementor Delta's stories that I read, this was one of the funniest and sweetest, sweeter than it should be given the premise:
http://archive.skyehawke.com/story.php?no=386&chapter=1&font=&size=

Kass Rachel is another from whom just about everything is good:
http://www.trickster.org/kass/

This one in particular fascinated me; it is another with very innovative world building and magical research (this time combining Jewish/Kaballah magic with HP magic):
http://www.trickster.org/kass/clay.html

Leaving behind HP, I really, really enjoy this writer:
http://www.offpanel.net/dmz/sga.html

Her stories are gen, often short, and brilliantly funny; her longer stories can be very dark and haunting, but equally good.  I think she has a military background, or civilian support for the military, so she writes a lot about the day-to-day life of the marines and soldiers who are always running around in the Stargate background scenes.  This is the first one of hers I read and I was instantly hooked:
http://www.offpanel.net/dmz/sga/tattoo.html

Finally, some of the best fanfic out of all fandoms I've read is by Sylvia Volk in Highlander, despite the ugly background to her web page,  Sylvia is the author I suggest people who have never read or heard of fanfic read.  Tho' DMZ from above would be another good "gateway" writer.

Sylvia's stories are gen (not slash or relationship focused).  She incorporates a lot of anthropological and historical research into her stories that gives them a very authentic feel.  "She, or the Slave Girl" (it is not what you think, not a kink story) and "Tall Tale" are two of my favorites.  The bronze-age anthro-geekery in Adamas is also really engaging:
http://www.iras.ucalgary.ca/~volk/sylvia/index.htm

3:13pm: On a happier note
So after the past couple of exhausting months, I've actually had a pretty nice couple of weeks. I took off two days last week, attended a seminar on Friday and then had the weekend.

This Wed. I had a Dr. appt and was supposed to go back to the office or go home and work. Instead I had a leisurely walk home. The appt was at Penn near 34th and Spruce, so I had lunch with oracne near 36th and Spruce.  I wandered through Penn's Locust Walk.  I've never really seen the inside of Locust Walk--some of the buildings are really quite lovely--I love the stone and mortar vaguely gothic look.  It's a shame they don't keep the same architectural theme with the new buildings.

When I hit Walnut I figured I would just walk a bit and then catch some transportation, then I stopped at Naked Chocolate for a chocolate, vanilla-iced, cupcake and a small Aztec drinking chocolate.  I've learned my lesson--the big drinking chocolate is too big for me and I never thought I would say anything chocolate was too big for me.   I read a little while finishing that off and then walked some more.  When I got over the Walnut St. bridge, I saw this ridiculously cute little cafe/tea house.  I figured what the hell, I may as well check it out.  So I had some nice ginger tea and a couple of petit fours.  I wasn't remotely hungry, but they were really adorable and the barista was so chipper, she was hard to resist. 

By that time it was nearly 4.  I had a conference call at 4, then figured I'd keep walking.  Eventually, I hit the Williams--Sonoma and I browsed around there.  Even though I'm not much of a cook, chef porn still amuses me.  I picked up some more of their cocktail mixers--they have a lemon-ginger-honey one that is delicious and a new pomegranate gimlet  I hadn't seen before.  I like their mixers because they aren't sweet--at least not syrupy sweet the way a lot of mixers are.

By that time, I was on Broad and my feet and back were kind of achy, so I caught the C Bus home--ironically, it was 5 PM.

Today, I was supposed to have jury duty, but when I called in, they said they didn't need me.  So, I decided to take the day off.  I went to Sabrina's for lunch.  I had one of their wacky Meixican-influenced dishes:  eggs, scrambled with chicken, cilantro, cheese and other stuff I can't remember, topped with lime sour cream, avocado and salsa, and a sweet potato hoe cake.  Very yummy.  Their food is always good, but I especially love all the complex combinations they have in their Mexi-breakfast specials.

Now, I'm at Anthony's coffee house.  I had a double cappuccino and a cannoli.  Both were excellent, but it's a good thing it's book club night, because after 3 cups of coffee and the cappuchino, I'm not sleeping anytime soon.

It's been a nice couple of days.  When I was in NYC, I used to spend a lot of days like this--just wandering from shop to cafe to shop.  I miss that. 

10:17am: Supernatural--is Dean homophobic? US pop culture gone metrosexual, stereotypes, soci-anthro rambling
So, lately I've been into TV shows... It's been years since I really watched a US show. I'm kind of a serial fan and for the past few years, I've been mostly into Asian dramas, anime, manga, video games and books.

Around the new year, I started watching various US mystery shows (Criminal Minds, Bones, Reaper, Chuck, and most recently Supernatural). I also saw the teen sex comedy, Fired Up (fricken funny as hell, if a raunchy mostly plotless version of "Bring It On" appeals to you).

One of the most interesting and consistent themes I noticed in Reaper, Supernatural, and to a lesser extent, Chuck, is what I'm calling "metrosexuality" for lack of a better codeword. Basically, there is a lot of humor and quips around impliedly "gay" characterizations or activities of otherwise straight characters. I don't mean they're slashy (they are, but this isn't what makes them slashy)--or that the characters are pretty and obsessed with grooming (the more common meaning of metrosexual--which is why I don't think that's the best term, but the only one I can come up with).

I do think what I see as humor--even jokes I might make in a similar situation--other people would no doubt see as exploitative or demeaning. I think I've always had a little issue with this interpretation and I'll try to explain why. I'll start with a brief excursion into why I'm ok with "exploitative" smut: At a con recently, a conversation about slash came up, and I made my now-standard statement that slash is not gay fiction--it's homoerotic fiction, but primarily written by and for straight women. To me, "gay fiction" implies it is a product of gay culture, whereas homoeroticism can arise out of many situations/cultures, etc. One of the panelists--an author (professional erotica writer, but also a secret slash author)--kind of went off on a tangent, but her response was that she was uncomfortable with the fetishization of gay men by slashers. She compared it to fetishizing and obsessively writing erotica about Chinese dragonlady stereotypes. This pretty much flabbergasted me.

My first response was, "What else is erotica, except fetishization of something--whether it's a blond duke with a big cock, a buxom red-head, a Chinese dragonlady, or yes, a hot gay man?" And yes, regardless of whether it’s a regency romance or a slash, it is exploitative. That is, the authors and readers are using images and stories about people who are unlike them to get off. If one takes the author's assertion to heart, the only people we can in conscience fetishize are people of the same race, sexual orientation and culture as ourselves. For that matter, I should only be able to fetishize fat, poly, kinky, bi-chicks....Ok, I would still have some pretty hot fantasy material available, but straight, vanilla, monogamous women are doomed to some pretty boring wank material.

So, while I think almost all erotica is exploitative, I don't think all exploitation is bad. By the same token, I think it is possible be straight and find humor in queer stereotypes and foibles without it being a "bad" exploitation. I know a lot of queers--including myself--who find humor in straight foibles. I regularly tease my co-worker B. for his relentlessly straight, vanilla, monogamous lifestyle. I think he would return the favor, but he's just not clued into queer lifestyle enough to do so--I make the Birkenstock jokes for him. Actually, he does tease me for being a nerd and suburba-phobe. (For the sake of brevity, I will skip the whole exploration of whether it's "more ok" for the minority/less empowered to exploit (women writing smut about well-hung dukes) or make fun of the majority.)

In Reaper and Fired Up especially, there is a lot of language and in-jokes between the main characters for doing something "gay" (sharing feelings, being a cooking queen, etc.). Yes, I realize this is classic homophobic language. Except, as homophobic language, it is intended to *stop* the guy who is "acting gay" from doing so--it is a warning, "Hey, you're going out of the bounds of acceptable straight male behavior. Stop it. Now. Or we're going to ostracize, and possibly bash, you."

In contrast, in Reaper and Fired Up, the "gay behavior" jokes are actually inclusive and accepting (there are also a lot of "gay"/metrosexual behaviors that are completely uncommented upon--they are just accepted as part of the character's personality (this happens a lot in Chuck)). The message of the homophobic wording has changed from "Stop it." to "Dude, you're a frat-boy-obnoxious straight guy making O-face about a quiche. That's funny." Yes, the humor is based on a stereotypical straight guy exhibiting stereotypically "gay" traits, and stereotypes can be bad. (see below for stereotype ramble)

One of the things I loved most about FU (besides watching all those hot, young, lithe, sculpted, bodies....was that one of the main two Lotharios was presented as very metrosexual from the beginning of the movie. I'll call him Blondie. It was never commented on--not even a it's funny you're so gay while being the BMOC, football captain, and poon-hound extraordinaire. He simply was and the other kids didn't even care enough to comment on it--which I guess is the next, better evolution of integrated acceptance with humor (after making the Reaper-type friendly jokes about "queer" behaviors).

Anyways, Blondie and his buddy have conned their way into cheer camp to make it with as many cheerleaders as possible. (Another thing I liked about the movie is that the girls were totally onboard with this--they owned their sexuality and knew what they and the guys wanted.) There are a couple of gay guys in their dorm. One is a screeching stereotype, but the other is not clearly identified until the end of the movie when it becomes clear he's been hitting on Blondie all along. In fact, he didn't realize Blondie was straight (at least not bi--since he's clearly into women) and tells him there are all kinds of closets. There's nothing deep about the movie, but if there was one hidden message or theme, I seriously think it was that Blondie was bi. He's totally into girls now, because that's the identity he grew up with and it easy to get with them, but in a few years he really will be an everything that moves kind of guy.

Favorite FU cheap laugh: The gay guy thought Blondie was interested in him in part because before leaving Blondie asks him for his "beads" which he proceeds to suck on, which is funny but not terribly disgusting to Blondie's fellow girl-chaser, who is the one who actually clues in Blondie to the fact the guy was hitting on him and the beads are anal beads.

I think the "gay" humor from Dean in Supernatural walks the homophobia line. But I also think this is due to the nature of his character, not any homophobic intent of the writers. Dean is half marine, half wild animal. Whether because of a sense of inferiority, resentment, jealousy, or genuine disdain (or all of the above), he rejects and denigrates anything he perceives as a trapping of "civilization" (the suburbs, education, art, iPods) and metrosexual behaviors definitely typify "civilization." Moreover, in his brother, they represent the possibility that his brother will leave him to settle down and live a normal ("civilized") life. I haven't seen all of the episodes, but Dean doesn't seem to mind metrosexuality in others or even himself (he is pretty damn vain) or particularly mind others assuming he is gay. Sam seems pretty unaware and indifferent to others' sexuality. So to answer my own subject line, I don't think Dean is homophobic, so much as phobic and passive-aggressively controlling of Sam.


Stereotype ramble:
I think stereotypes are necessary coping mechanisms and everybody has them, but you have to be aware of them and control how they crop up in your thinking. Humans exist and organize the world by categorizing and sorting information. Stereotypes are a way of categorizing information about people you don't know. I think our subconscious would be overwhelmed if we didn't have stereotypes to help us organize the hundreds (and depending on your city, thousands) of people our brains have to process every day. However, stereotypes are bad if you use ones that have negative connotations (frat-boys are obnoxious) and/or if you use positive (Asians are smart) or negative stereotypes to prejudge people, set up expectations, or project them onto people. Especially if you do so after you know a person and therefore (should) have better information to work off of.

Argh have to get back to life now.