Bobby-Style Update (Valentine’s Day 2010)

1. Improvement In Housemate Interactions
2. New Photographic Equipment (new to me, at least)
3. Dispensing Advice To Younger People And Other Irresponsible Activities
4. A Puzzle

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1.
My housing situation in Palo Alto is similar to my housing situation in Seattle:

-I live in a cheap room.
-I live in a shitty room.
-My housemates are sketchy.
-My place is inconveniently far from the college I am attending.
-I live in a generally safe neighborhood.

About three weeks ago, someone new moved in to the room adjacent to mine. If you are older than I am and living in a room that costs $595/month, chances are that you’re sketchier than me. My new housemate, whose name I do not know, is about thirty-five and certainly fits the bill. When he moved in, he told me that he was a Canadian citizen (which I half-believe). In response to my asking him what he did for a living, he said “write business letters” (which I don’t believe). He also told me that he was moving in because he was homeless, and insinuated that, in addition to lacking authorization to work in the US, he lacks authorization to be in the US. When I go walking at night, I sometimes see him muttering with strangers on the streets near our place. Both parties always look quite suspicious when I notice them, which makes me suspect that my new roommate is a drug dealer.

This gentleman speaks English very poorly; his native language is Chinese. On one occasion, when I was cooking pasta, he walked out of his room and started talking to me about Stanford. He asked me if my student ID allowed me access to all of Stanford’s libraries. I told him that it did. He asked me if I used it every day. I told him that I didn’t, but that if he thought I would loan it to him, he was sadly mistaken. He went back into his room after that, but on several occasions he has asked again to borrow my ID. Obviously I do not intend to loan it to him, since I suspect that he might steal electronics or other valuables from Stanford’s libraries, and since loaning my ID to him would allow him to run up any number of debts in my name. Of course, when one signs up to receive a Stanford ID, one signs paperwork stating that one will not allow any other person to use the ID, and that one will promptly report any loss or theft of the card.

Last Wednesday, he was again bothering me about wanting to borrow my ID. He told me that “if you don’t let me use your card, then I will have to meet some Stanford student in my church”. Although I love the Pope, I was hardly convinced. He kept bothering me until I became very upset. When I started shouting at him and using abusive language, he tried to apologize by saying that he “didn’t speak English” very well. I said the following rather loudly:

“You know what the first thing you should learn when you learn English is? You know what, motherfucker? The first thing you should learn is, you don’t fuck with blue-eyed Mexicans. Then, the conjugations of the verb ‘to be’…”.

By this time he was retreating inside his room. He now avoids me whenever possible, and if I am cooking, he will open his door a crack, see me, and then shut and lock his door. This is a great development because he no longer bothers me, and it also makes for “lulz” because, due to my erratic schedule and his never leaving the apartment except to deal drugs, I often surprise him by (for example) entering the kitchen and frying an onion at 4:00 AM. I am a difficult person to find, but also a difficult person to avoid encountering.

Today he spoke to me for the first time since the incident last Wednesday. He had bought a package of chicken wings and asked me (in broken English) if I knew how to cook it. He was having trouble reading the label, which gave the cooking instructions. I noticed that the chicken wings were supposed to be cooked to 165 Fahrenheit, which I told him. Unfortunately, since he is a Canadian drug dealer and I am a chemist, neither of us had any idea how hot 165 F was. I simply told him that 165 F was below the boiling point of water, and that, if he heated the chicken wings such that all parts reached the boiling point of water, he would be safe. He hid in his room after that, but I could hear him using the microwave after I went back into my room. Lol.

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2.
I managed to borrow a Nikon D70 DSLR from Stanford. Although lower in resolution than my point-and-shoot (6.1 versus 8.0 X 10^6), the DSLR has a much larger sensor and gives less noisy images. It’s fitted with an 18-55 mm. lens. I prefer prime (i.e. fixed-focal-length) lenses. Most people who like prime lenses seem to like them because they give lower stops, but I like to shoot at f/8 or above anyway, and I usually have a tripod, so those aren’t really concerns for me. The way I see it is this: If I want to restrict depth-of-field, I’ll shoot deep-field and then blur whatever I want to in Photoshop. For me, prime lenses are more desirable simply because they give better optical performance. I suspect part of the reason that Stanford doesn’t stock prime lenses is that they don’t want people changing lenses. I did a bit of street photography and found myself in fact glad to have a zoom lens. A telephoto might even be good, since most of the problems associated with telephoto lenses can be eliminated with a tripod, and I carry one with me whenever I have my camera. My best shot so far is a sixty-year-old woman wearing trendy sunglasses, the plastic kind with the brightly-colored rims that were popular when we were young, “innocent”, and even stupider.

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3.
Went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) with someone from one of my classes.

We had planned to meet at 1:00 PM at a certain location on campus. He was ten minutes late and didn’t call me, nor did he run towards my car when he saw me. This made me very upset, which I veiled somewhat. He never apologized, nor did he offer to chip in on parking ($19) when we got to San Francisco.

The museum was full of art and French people. Some of the art was decent. I saw some photographs by Diane Arbus and the F/64 club and felt briefly “historically connected” or “arrogant and superior”, which are the same. After two and a half hours I became bored, which is also the same. He had become bored much earlier, and spent the last hour at the Museum passed out over a table in the café on the first floor. He explained that he was extremely hungover from the previous night. I felt very grateful that he had not vomited in my car.

He’s a Junior, and asked me for advice on various topics. I lectured him on the importance of dental/car insurance and the benefits of selling out in matters of employment/relationships. He asked me if there were any long-term negative effects “from binge-drinking for four years- like, maybe blacking out every two weekends”. He seemed extremely surprised when I told him there were. We’ve never drank together, and when I told him I drank, he asked me if I had “ever done anything else”.

We chatted about the miseries of our lives and then he fell asleep so I put on some Miley Cyrus. Her music was still playing when he woke up but I don’t think he judged me. Unlike me, he is very self-confident, and explained that he didn’t drink at frat parties to boost his confidence, but rather so he would feel okay about sleeping with women whom he wouldn’t be able to stand when sober. I told him to try drinking less and less while lowering his standards more and move, since selling out while sober is a valuable skill, one that develops with practice. It's simply unsustainable to think you can drink every time you'll need to lower your standards.

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4.
This is a word-puzzle after Stinson’s style. I may not understand Twitter but I know how to use a pen and paper and scanner. A hint has been posted.
Peas out.

P.S. Erik, I will read and comment on your stuff.

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