Rohit's Realm

Quarter Century

2008-10-03T17:41:04-07:00

With the passing of this day, the third of October in the year of our Lord, two thousand and eight, comes a momentously irrelevant occasion. It is the day that marks my attainment of the much-coveted (and frequently obtained) quarter century status. On a dark day, twenty-five years ago, I arrived upon this planet, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Luckily for you, dear readers, I would not retain that sunshiny disposition for long, quickly trading in smiles for frowns and happiness for despair. For twenty-five long (and consummately miserable years), I have disgraced my family, my friends, myself, and society at large. With this post, I hope to continue in that storied tradition.

Last year, I chose to dedicate my post to introspection; today, I will dedicate it to circumspection (what?).

Having managed to survive for the past quarter century, what do I have to show for it? Do I have a job? No. Do I own any (real) property? No. Have I contributed anything to society ever? Not in the least. Really, all that I have in my life is this blog. Nothing else. In essence, I am just another deadbeat blogger closer to thirty than twenty whose accounts payable exceed his accounts receivable.

Where did my youth go? Down a (plastic) bottle of substandard alcohol, no doubt. The past twenty-five years have been a woeful tale of abject failure. The next twenty-five are sure to be the same.

Outsourcing My Personal Existence

2008-10-01T14:55:32-07:00

Amidst the breathless chatter in recent weeks about banks failing, markets melting, and capitalism ending (¡Viva la revolución!), a vastly more important story has been relegated to consummately irrelevant blogs such as this one: my own life is falling apart. And while long-time readers may be excused for pondering what makes this news of any import whatsoever, considering, first, that I lead a largely marginalized and trivial existence, and second, that my life is always in some state of catastrophic collapse given its necessary futility, the unprecedented levels of anxiety, self-doubt, and despair that have consumed me in past month nonetheless convince me that something out of the ordinary is afoot.

I am sleeping little, accomplishing less, and ending each day further behind than I started it. To speak in terms of a particularly vivid (and thoroughly disgusting) analogy from years past, the levels of shit in my clear box are increasing much faster than I can shovel them out. This acceleration is, of course, unsustainable in the long term. And while the ultimate solution remains an option (as it must), I am not persuaded that the tragicomedy of the situation has reached levels such that facilitating my own demise would yield maximum irony. Something, however, must be done. Last year I spoke of outsourcing my digital existence. Today I propose something far more drastic.

Outsourcing is fundamentally about efficiency. Why perform all the tasks necessary towards some end, the theory asks, when it is possible to only perform those in which there is some value to be added, leaving all others to those better suited or situated. Though often discussed in terms of corporate efficiency, the concept is no less relevant to individuals. As I discussed in my article about outsourcing e-mail hosting to Google, overall efficiency may be dramatically increased when the costs of outsourcing do not outweigh the benefits.

And, by and large, my decision to outsource my digital existence has proved to be a value-added venture. Without the horrors of mission-critical system administration to bog me down, I am able to concentrate on other tasks, thus increasing my own efficiency.

But with my second year of law school shaping up to be dramatically more grueling than my first (oh, the lies I was told!), the efficiency garnered by digital outsourcing has not been sufficient to counter the costs of overcommitment that over the years have come to define my life. Putting on my consulting hat and taking a hard look at areas which can be outsourced in my life, I have arrived at the difficult conclusion that my personal life can—and should—be cut. And while we are talking about this, it might be good to considering outsourcing sleeping and eating as well.

To be clear, this was not a hasty decision. Insofar as I do now or will in the future add any value whatsoever to society (a dubious proposition at best), it will come as being the proverbial (fungible) cog in the (loathsome) corporate machine. Socially, I add no value at all—nor will I ever, given my fundamental status as a commodity friend.

The question that naturally follows from the conclusion above is why I still bother to go through the motions of social interaction? Would not it be easier if someone better suited to this task were to undertake it for me? Of course it would!

The natural question for attentive readers might be why not just dispense with the social nature of one's life altogether, instead of seeking to outsource it? The answer is relatively simple, and is grounded in one of the fundamental principles discussed earlier (in the context of marriage): brand management. While those who simple isolate themselves from the world at large to pursue higher levels of efficiency may face serious disrepute amongst less efficiency-minded individuals in society, those who outsource their socialization need not worry since the world still perceives them as well-rounded individuals (whatever that means!).

Like most theories, practical difficulties abound. For instance, how does one implement this outsourcing of social functions without giving away the game? Specifically, how can a person send someone else to socialize with his or her friends without said friends realizing this sham absent ridiculous levels of intoxication?

That is a serious difficulty indeed, and unfortunately, one for which I currently have no solution. I am fairly confident, however, that robots will be involved in some capacity. I may have dropped the ball by not using my EE degree to build such (or any other) robots, but hopefully someone else will pick it up and run with it. The efficiency of the whole world awaits your invention! Get to work, people.

RIP WaMu

2008-09-27T14:10:13-07:00

With so much going on in the past two weeks in the worlds of politics and finance, what with capitalism coming to a grinding halt and super-geriatric McCain single-handedly swooping in to rescue us from a cohort of spendthrift, earmarking incompetents who fundamentally do not understand the economy (whoops, did I jump the gun on Monday morning's headline on Fox News?), the consummate news junkie in me has been quite remiss to have been stuck in callback interviews all day, thus cut off from both my computer and my CrackBerry™. The last I ventured into this mess was November of 2007, when I argued that at least some responsibility for the meltdown must remain with those at the bottom of the pyramid of lies that took on loans larger than they could afford. The events of the last two weeks confirm that the banks deserve much more of the blame for enabling those liars and fools.

While there is much to discuss this week between the first presidential debate last night, the ongoing negotiations (subscription required) in Washington, DC over the Administration's proposed $700 billion bailout,¹ and the sad death of legendary actor Paul Newman, I would like to focus on a death of another kind this week, that of my beloved bank of nearly ten years, Washington Mutual.

Now, for someone as markedly unsentimental as me, lament over the failure of a corporate entity—in fact, the biggest banking failure in US history—seems rather disingenuous. (And perhaps it is; as you all know, disingenuity has never been lacking on the Realm.) Yet, in other ways, it is hardly any more or less so than lament over a person I never knew or met.

WaMu, as it was affectionately know amongst its myriad subscribers, was my first foray into adulthood. It was where I deposited my first paycheck, way back at the nescient age of sixteen; it was where I opened my first checking account;² and it remained a rock solid constant in an otherwise transient life that has spanned four cities of residence in as many years,³ and countless short-term stints in many others. The same could hardly be said about any person in my life outside my family.

More than just that, however, it was an institution with which I was associated that caused me little grief. Unlike the horrible fights with the likes of AT&T or Comcast before it, WaMu never caused me any problems—not once. My checking account balance was free to rise and fall as did my fortunes, and never once were there any stupid service fees. Why should one pay to store one's money interest free, right?

Well, it seems that most other retail banks (are there any other kind these days?) do not share that eminently logical sentiment, and especially not JP Morgan Chase, the company that picked up WaMu's customer deposits last week. It seems that even their free checking product has a monthly $6 fee unless one has direct deposit or engages in five debit card transactions per month. Six dollars a month so that you can hold and use my money and pay me no interest? Are you kidding me? Rot in hell, assholes.

More significantly, I have had issues with this bank in the past. I have a credit card with them, and despite setting up e-mail alerts to tell me two days before my credit card payment is due (I am strictly online statements at this point), it never comes through. Suspiciously, the late alerts do work. When I remember the deadline, that is fine; when I do not, I end up paying a worthless late fee. Whether this is gross technical incompetence on the part of Chase, or a sinister attempt to extract fees, I could not tell you. But what I do know is that it sucks. A lot.

Surveying the other national banks (e.g., BofA, Citibank), it seems that none have a true free checking account. Moreover, with my future plans in flux, it is difficult to pick a bank that is not well-represented in all markets I may end up in. A perfect example is Wells Fargo. It seems to have a decent checking account product, and is strong in Los Angeles and San Francisco, but has virtually no presence in Chicago (where I am now) or New York (where I may be in the future). Smaller Chicago banks are useless for a similar reason.

I suppose I never realized how good I had it with WaMu until its untimely demise last week. With Chase indicating that the integration might occur as early as six months, I am actively in the market for a new bank. I will not be held hostage over debit card transactions and I definitely will not pay monthly service fees. Any thoughts on where I might find a decent free checking account would be much appreciated.

^ ¹ With the bailout negotiations continuing over the weekend, I reserve comment for another day on how we might reconcile helping the banks while ignoring the so-called homeowners. For all I know, such a reconciliation may not be possible. Time will tell.
^ ² As an aside, I still have the original set of checks I got from opening my bank account in 2001. They have my Unit One address. Deutsch Hall foreva!
^ ³ For those wondering, those cities are: Berkeley, Calif., San Francisco, Calif., Chicago, Ill., and New York, N.Y.

Window Seats, Shocking Feats

2008-09-21T22:09:06-07:00

Apologies, dear readers, for my extended absence from the wonderful world of worthless blogging. Between the loathsome task of moving (which I alluded to earlier), the soul-crushing work associated with legal journal membership, and the angst-inducing experience of on-campus interviewing (of which, more later), I have hardly found the time to sleep or eat, let alone spew incoherent vitriol for the disaffected readership of this most meaningless of blogs. Rest assured, however, that my three-week hiatus does not mark the end of the venerable Realm, merely a brief respite from the pursuit of nothingness that continues to serve as its purpose.

It is hard to believe that it has been four years since I last went through the (often painful) recruiting process as a senior at Cal. And though the setup may be the same—20 minutes on-campus, half-day second round—just about everything else is vastly different, not the least of which is me.

On my flight into New York, N.Y., tonight, I was seated at a window seat, something that has not happened in probably the last decade. (As you might suspect, I prefer the aisle so as to get out of the plane faster and encounter less delay from slow-moving morons.) It took me back to my childhood, seated at the window (always the window!) on long international flights, staring out at all the happenings on the ground as the plane got set to leave or arrive.

This was a simpler time. A time before I knew that time was money, or that greed was good, or that slow-moving fatties were the bane of my existence. I used to be so excited about all the various machinations on the ground: the elevated conveyor belt; the small tractor hooked up to a series of baggage carts; the vehicle that is used to push the airplane back from the gate; and the dudes with the glowing sticks directing traffic. Indeed, had I had my choice back then, I would have chosen a job on the airport tarmac in a heartbeat. At least it cannot be said that I was born an elitist.

Of course, that was two decades ago. A lot has changed since then. The particularly poignant irony of the situation hit me much later, as the plane was touching down at LaGuardia. Here I was reminiscing about a time when I wanted to work at an airport when the only reason I had that window seat in the first place was because I was going to interview at a law firm.

What happened in those twenty years (besides two degrees and a third pending one)? When did I trade in my small-town values for this (Hyde Park) lib'rul, elitist, out-of-touch personality that I exude today? When did being a corporate litigator replace the goal of being an airport employee? Maybe if all this ivory tower shit had not happened, I too could be clinging to my guns and religion like all them other good folks in small towns across the country. You know—real 'Mericans.

Then again, if I was working at an airport some place, there would likely be no Realm, and then where would you be, dear readers? Angst-free and happy, no doubt, and who could possibly want something that awful? I would not wish it on my worst enemy.

ADD Meets OCD

2008-08-29T09:41:25-07:00

In the twenty odd years of my woeful existence on this planet, I have often been accused of possessing various socially undesirable qualities, none of which require rehashing here (lest I start crying). Very likely, attention deficit disorder was not one of them. Indeed, if there is any redeemable quality at all to my (necessarily futile) existence, it is that I can concentrate in the face of rampant distraction very well.

Except that I cannot. (Readers can now rest assured that my life has no redeemable quality whatsoever.) To clarify, my powers of concentration only function when I care about what I am doing. The slightest inclination of the tedious, idiotic, or onerous, and suddenly, I have more ADD than a five-year-old on a sugar rush freebasing with a spoon and lighter (what?).

The latter state is one in which I find myself today, faced (yet again) with the prospect of packing up all my possessions and moving to a new apartment. Worse still, when I get into these ADD moods, it tends to exacerbate my already strong tendency towards obsessive-compulsive behavior. So, with hours of packing left, tomorrow completely unavailable, and the movers arriving Sunday morning, I find myself tormented over why I have never dedicated time to my IM buddy list organization scheme. Someone needs to put me out of my misery.

Leaving aside suggestions that I ought to simply pull the trigger, this is a rather serious question. Buddy list taxonomy is just as crucial as Facebook rosters, right? Of course!

In the glorious mid-90s, when AOL Instant Messenger was all the rage, not this newfangled Jabber nonsense (Gtalk, for the technologically inept, uses the Jabber protocol), I only had three groups (and a much smaller list of buddies): Family, Friends, and Acquaintances. This served my purposes well; most high school friends belonged to the Friends group, while Acquaintances were those whom I disliked but who it made sense to track for one reason or another.

When I arrived in college, I decided it was best to separate out my college friends from my high school ones, so I went to four groups; Friends became Uni (my high school) and Cal. As college progressed, I began to subdivide my college friends into contexts as my buddy list grew unwieldy and keeping track of people became harder (e.g., Hall Staff, CalSO, ResComp).

The system, decaying to begin with, completely fell apart after college however. In San Francisco, I had initially added a group for those I met at work, but what was to happen when they left the company? Did it make sense to still retain them in the company context? I was baffled. Also, in the course of cavorting around San Francisco, I often became friends (if you know what I mean) with people who did not fit into any context at all; they were just people I knew in San Francisco.

About two years ago, I began supplementing my buddy list with locale-specific groups (e.g., San Francisco, New York, Chicago) to address this very problem. At the same time, I retained the organizational contexts (e.g., Chicago Law) of years past. Today, my list is an nasty amalgamation of inconsistent groups and pure nonsense. Or in other words, my carefully planned schema from high school has completely fallen apart! The horror!

Serious research (and by that, I mean, five minutes Googling while engaged in ten other activities) has yielded no good solution, only contributing to my (already) potent angst. I am totally miffed here. Should I go to a locale-based system? Should I retain the hybrid? Should I try something completely different? Should I just kill myself? I DON'T KNOW!

Consider this a cry for help, people.

Second Time's (Still) Not a Charm

2008-08-26T23:34:45-07:00

Nary three weeks after announcing the continuation of my much-touted romantic quest (to ruin my life), and hardly a year after finding—and losing—a potential soulmate, I once again found myself on a flight, this time from Orange County, Calif., to Chicago, Ill., seated next to an (attractive) woman and engrossed in conversation. As the flight lifted off, and as the brief initial exchange with the passenger in the window seat gave way to a conversation interesting enough such that I was persuaded to put down the (obviously pretentious) book in my hand, my thoughts immediately turned to that fateful trip last year and the opportunity I had let pass me by. Determined not to let the pitch sail by yet again, I steadied myself for the swing. The second time would be the charm, I assured myself.

Alas, if only it were so. Unfortunately, as much as I would like to report to you, dear readers, that my second foray into meeting potential soulmates on airplanes was more successful than my first, I cannot. This is, after all, the Realm, a place of little happiness and less success, a place where there are no happy endings, only soul-crushing disappointments and heart-wrenching failures.

I am happy (insofar as that is possible) to report, however, that this failure, unlike the long list of those in the past that follow virtually every encounter I have with attractive women, had less to do with me and more to do with fortune—or the lack thereof. Things had started off well. After exchanging dirty looks over the awful little kid in front of us who seemed to cry at the drop of a hat, talk quickly moved from the vapid (e.g., why I was wearing a suit (interview), what I did (law school), what she did (accounting—diversification! Value add!)), to the philosophical and abstruse. Hour after hour elapsed, though it was as though time was standing still for me; I was increasingly mesmerized. Before I knew it, the captain was announcing our initial descent, and shortly thereafter, we were on the ground at O'Hare.

The moment of truth. Not hesitating, I swung for the fences. So, do you live in Chicago? Would you like to meet up at some point? Pretty strong words for my usual ambivalent and disinterested self, but then, I was feeling pretty good about my chances. Pride always comes before fall.¹

Her reply was the type of anticlimax that would make for a great scene in a (thoroughly depressing) comedy. I would love to, but I'm actually not going to Chicago. I'm catching a connecting flight to London at O'Hare tonight. Maybe when you're back in OC though? I laughed. I did not want to, but how could I not? The irony was too great. So much for swinging for the fences, right? Perhaps, I replied, knowing it was not to be.

At that point, the little girl in front of us started bawling loudly, no doubt because she could not unbuckle her seat belt (or something equally preposterous). I sort of knew how she felt.²

Another attractive woman, another catastrophic failure, another devastating tale of inadequacy and disappointment for the Realm. At least, maybe this one goes down in the books as a sacrifice fly (maybe fielder's choice?) rather than a strike out.³ The key is to find a silver lining. It keeps the darkness at bay.

^ ¹ One could cite Proverbs 16:18 for this sentiment, but I prefer Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, specifically the Nun's Priest's Tale. The wannabe English minor in me lives on.
^ ² Or not. I really wish I did not enjoy the irony of my own failures as much as I do.
^ ³ You know things are bad when I use a extended sports metaphor. What the hell? Maybe it is because football season is about to start. You know, because that obviously explains the baseball references.

Rohit Reviews: In Cold Blood

2008-08-21T14:38:01-07:00

Considering that my taste in books in recent years has tended towards dense and depressing, I thought I would take a break this summer for some lighter reading. Truman Capote's In Cold Blood was probably not the best way to accomplish my goal.

The novel, which incidentally was the subject of the 2005 film Capote, is often described as a masterpiece. I would not necessarily go as far, but I do not know that I can articulate why. Certainly, it was good, and after a slow start, I got so into it that I finished it in one marathon sitting this past Sunday. And as all reviews are want to do, I too can (and briefly will) gush on how it paints a vivid portrait of the men who perpetrated a senseless crime that ended the lives of four very sympathetic people. The manner in which Capote portrays the killers—without condemnation, almost sympathetically—is truly a masterful accomplishment.

So why the hesitation at describing it as a masterpiece? I think, in the end, it is not a reflection on this novel, but only that I have read others which I found to be better. That said, I would still recommend it to all but the most squeamish. It is well-written, quickly read, and if nothing else, brings to life a horrific true story from forty years past. Four stars of five.

New York, It's Been Real

2008-08-19T17:11:30-07:00

For those following along, my awesome (and awesomely dysfunctional!) bum-filled, bridge-and-tunnel supported summer in New York, N.Y., has finally wound to a close. As I fought unusually strong suicidal impulses upon arriving in much-loathed Hyde Park and prepared for another year of dodging bullets and avoiding vagabonds, marauders, and socially inept undergrads, I could not help but miss New York, despite having spent only a few short months there.

But enough of that sentimental shit. This ain't a site about gushing about the past; it is a blog about inadequacy, failure, self-loathing, and suicide. Why talk about love when one can speak of hate? Why engage in nostalgia when one can revel in anger? Without further adieu, I present some of the things I will not miss about New York, and round out the post with some things I still hate about Chicago/Hyde Park.

Fear and Loathing in New York

Cynical readers might expect me to launch into another vitriolic diatribe about MTA, what with its insufferably hot and humid subway tunnels and semi-functional late night train schedules. But, as I mentioned earlier, the loathsome SF MUNI continues to hold the number one position on my hit list of awful public transportation systems (privatize MUNI!!!!), and nothing I experienced on MTA this summer begins to compete. Similarly, the abomination of trash in the streets and general smelliness is also out, mostly because I have already dedicated pixels to this, albeit in a footnote. Never fear, however, for there is still much to hate. For instance:

Tourists and Various Other Slow-Moving Ass-clowns. All my life, I have been tormented by fat asses that amble about at a snail's pace, not a care in the world, and who, by the will of a merciless God generally always choose to do so right in front of me. Upon arriving in New York City, the first few hours I felt as though I was in heaven. Everyone walked fast! Those who did not got out of the way! Hallelujah, right? WRONG! While New Yorkers may walk fast, the city is filled with hordes of the very same fat asses from across the country that have tormented me for years. You goddamn people! Get the hell out of my way! I suppose it is small consolation that in New York, you can accidentally let your laptop bag filled with books swing and hit them as you race on pass without the hint of an apology, but still: it'd be better if these people all just died.
The Fat Person Cut-Off. A complementary problem to No. 1 is the Fat Person Cut-Off, whereby while waiting on a curb for a light to turn, you will be cut off by some fat ass who thinks that by standing closer to the street they might get ahead or whatever. As if. All you assholes do is block me when the light does turn green, make me suffer as you amble about slowly, make me exert additional energy to go around you and swing my laptop bag at you, and raise my blood pressure for the rest of the day. (Yes, I hold a grudge.) The worst part is the total futility of the cut-off in the first place. Let's face it: you walk slow, I walk fast; why not accept it and stop getting in the way? Better yet, why not just kill yourself? OK? Thanks.
Lower Manhattan. How do I put this delicately? Lower Manhattan is one of the biggest clusterfucks I have ever encountered in my life—and that includes time spent in Mumbai, India. Construction, dust, noise, detours, police, strollers, massive trucks, constant traffic, inadequate public transportation, more construction, more noise, more dust—aaaah! While most of my friends were off living it up in Midtown, I had to endure the gross misfortune of Lower Manhattan every single weekday. It was awful. Can anyone explain why, with the WTC site sill a massive hole seven years after 9/11, it was thought that allowing Goldman Sachs to build something across the street would be a good idea? Twice the construction, twice the fun? Obviously not, assholes! Seriously. The post-apocalyptic look is so last season.
Female Construction Workers in Lower Manhattan. Along with the disaster of Lower Manhattan also comes another major source of trouble, at least for me. For some reason, the whole summer, I was constantly being yelled at by female construction workers directing traffic. I could never do right by them! Whatever I did, and where ever I walked, I got yelled at, often quite obscenely. I may not cry on the outside, ladies, but that does not mean my feelings do not get hurt! Why are you so mean to me?!
Subway Bums. As all of you know, I am quite experienced in the study of bummery. Based on expertise developed over years of vein-popping experiences with society's dredges, I can honestly say that New York has the highest levels of public transportation harassment of any major city I have visited. While SF clearly has the highest ratio of failed human beings, at least they are mostly concentrated in awful areas like the 'Loin (easier to net and banish to Alcatraz!). In New York, it seemed that I could never get on a subway without some failed human being giving a self-righteous speech, playing awful music, and then demanding change. Some days I'd hear the exact same lies both to and from work. Hey, you piece of shit, what part of Get a job, asshole did you not understand nine hours earlier? Rot in hell.

I could go on, but I am sure you get the picture. Plus, I would not want to hate on New York too much. I actually did have a great summer (as far as I capable of experiencing happiness), and it is definitely a place where I could see myself ending up. I only hate because I love. Or something to that effect.

Chicago: New Year, Same Rage

As for Chicago, well, I do not have much to say. Yesterday I got a parking ticket for $50. I had put in an hour's worth of change at 6:57 p.m.; the meter was only in effect until 8 p.m. Did the meter maid show up in the last three minutes or what? And fifty dollars for three minutes? Really? Goddamn you, Chicago!

Today, I waited in line at Potbelly's in Hyde Park for literally fifteen minutes while a lady searched for her wallet to pay for a sandwich. Sense of urgency? Not quite.

It's going to be a great year. I can tell.

The Other One: Confessions of an Unapologetic Adulterer

2008-08-10T11:11:09-07:00

News that former presidential candidate John Edwards lied about an extramarital affair got me thinking about my own licentious ways and especially the torrid—and tawdry!—affair that I have been carrying on for past few years. Since it has transitioned from the realm of mere physical attraction to that of true emotional attachment, I can no longer keep it a secret. And unlike Messr. Edwards, who in a race to the bottom justified his affair on the basis that his wife's cancer was in remission, I will not attempt to effect disingenuous contrition; I stand proud and unapologetic over my adulterous ways.

Of course, since this is the Realm and not the Enquirer, the said adultery involves no women, only electronics. (Big surprise, right?) In the past three years I have increasingly been cheating on my beloved (but aging) PowerBook with the newer and hipper CrackBerry™. What started out as a mere transaction of convenience (instant access to work e-mail) has quickly become an indispensable part of my daily life. I can honestly say that I could not live without either at this point.

As all those more experienced in these sorts of things than me know, a mistress is not supposed to replace the wife; she is something on the side to fill in the (sexual) gaps (what?). With the CrackBerry™, however, I can now perform many crucial daily activities without ever accessing the PowerBook (or any one of my four other machines). Of these activities, probably most significant is e-mail.

E-mail is one of the greatest innovations of our time, and concomitantly, one of the worst evils ever unleashed on mankind. In March 2007, I (finally) gave up hosting my own e-mail (wow, I was hardcore back then), and outsourced it to Google. Soon thereafter, I adopted the amazing Inbox Zero methodology. For those not in the know, Inbox Zero basically treats e-mail as actions, and has dramatically increased my productivity since I made the plunge. (Obviously that is a very cursory explanation; check it out. It will change your life.)

Under Inbox Zero, each incoming e-mail is instantly processed; I use one of four actions:

Read and archive, if it is purely informational and not too long;
Read, follow up, and archive if I can in less than five minutes;
Read and leave in my Inbox if I need to act upon it within the day and it will take more than five minutes; or
Read, star, and archive, if it needs to be dealt with at a later date.

Since all my various e-mail accounts now feed directly into my 'berry, they are processed on the spot. Indeed, there are only two things for which I access e-mail on my computer anymore these days:

To read long and highly technical articles my father tends to send me on an almost daily basis that cannot be read comfortably on the small 'berry screen; or
To follow up on an e-mail that contained media (e.g., link to YouTube) that does not work on the 'berry.

Quite literally, I spend less than ten minutes per day on my computer with e-mail. Is that ridiculous or what?

The 'berry has also managed to replace many other tasks, but not fully. I conduct much of my Facebooking (is that a word? really?) on the 'berry, including reading and responding to messages and wall posts. (Of course, the lonely Saturday nights staring at pictures of friends of friends are better accomplished on a computer, but that much should be obvious.) Similarly, I alternate between the computer and the mobile for news feeds; the mobile Google Reader is pretty nifty and works well.

All that said, there are still some things for which the 'berry is ill-suited, and I do not see myself getting rid of any computers any time soon. Programming, research, writing, and other activities are but a few for which a computer is indispensable and screen real estate matters. But being constantly connected to the world via a smartphone has allowed me to optimize my time and enhance my productivity tenfold—if not more. As for those who complain that the 'berry is a distraction, I see your point, but there is an easy solution: when you really need to concentrate, put the 'berry on quiet and put it where you cannot see the light. Check it once an hour or so. Problem solved.

Going forward, consumption is only going to move further into the handheld realm as people try to strike a healthy balance between computers and other devices. The productivity increase is too great for it to be any other way. Rather than complaining about it, we should embrace it. Too bad it does not work that way spouses, right? Or at least that is what Edwards must be wondering right about now.

My Romantic Quest: From Cynicism to Nihilism (Part 2)

2008-08-09T15:02:47-07:00

Almost three years ago in a seminal entry commemorating the fourth anniversary of the venerable Realm, I set forth this site's (and consequently, my own) life plan for the decade to come. Invoking both Faulkner and Byron, I reasoned that the only way to move beyond the petulant and aimless attacks upon Berkeley bums that dominated this site was to embrace a path of unchecked self-destruction, in turn becoming a better writer. And how exactly was I going to destroy my life? Simple: meet the woman of my dreams, fall madly in love, be overwhelmed by hope and joy, and then have the said woman break my heart beyond repair, leaving me in a state of ever-worsening despair, unable to find love or happiness ever again (emphasis original).

So, why do I bring any of this up on this day of all days? Well, today is August 8, 2008, which means I only have a little over four years in which to get married. Needless to say, shit has gotten real.

Those of you who are scratching your heads and wondering if I just dropped a non sequitur cannot be blamed; what I just wrote really does not follow—unless you know the following. A while back—I think it might have been June 6, 2006—I decided that since I needed to marry to live (beyond the age of thirty), that it would be totally awesome (and sweet and radical) to get married on a triplet of a date such as, for instance, July 7, 2008—07/07/07. The more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that indeed I could not marry on any other date; nothing else would be awesome (and sweet and radical) enough.

The first problem with this hard-line perspective, of course, is that I was both late to the game (five of the potential dates had already passed) and born too late in the last century to realistically get married within the highly constrained twelve-year time frame. I was only twenty-two in June 2006, and I will barely be twenty-nine in December 2012; considering my (necessarily futile) career plans, being married before thirty is looking increasingly unlikely.

The other problem with this commendable goal I realized only much later: though breakin' up [may be] hard to do, at least according to The Carpenters, getting heartbroken ain't that easy at all.¹ And believe me, I have tried!²

What is the long and short of this sorry state of affairs? Simple. Although I might have had time to screw around back in the rockin' days of fall of 2005, with only four years left until 12/12/12, I got to get my shit together ASAP if I hope to fulfill my life plan. If this wedding—and subsequent heart break—is going to happen,³ the ball needs to get rolling soon.

Luckily, with the when established, much of the hard work is already done. While a December wedding is not ideal (I like summer or fall, personally), it is a sacrifice that will have to be made. As for the who, what, where, why, and how, the answer is simple. As I noted in my (much-touted, plainly ill-informed) economic analysis of interpersonal relations, most people are commodities, and there is no reason why this line of thought should not extend to potential spouses. The key, as always, is to focus on the all-important criteria of dual income and brand management.

What is more difficult at this phase in my romantic quest is luring potential dual incomes/desirable brands into a nuptial transaction. My balance sheet has rapidly deteriorated since 2007 as a result of returning to academia, and I am no longer in a position to offer a potential acquisition target anything she wants (with the anything underlined twice, obviously). Indeed, I do not even have business cards to pass along my not-so-subtle message.

Consider what I offered in 2005:

In return, you will receive:

My sizable annual electronics and alcohol budgets reappropriated for you during the course of our relationship.

My undivided attention, loosely translated as romance—flowers, candy, love letters, and all kinds of other stupid shit sappy people care about.

Dedication as the person I owe it all to if I ever become rich and/or famous. There would, of course, also be monetary compensation for the former.

The warm, fuzzy feeling of having played a vital role in my romantic quest to ruin my life.

In 2008, with an annual electronics budget of nothing, and an annual alcohol budget of very little, my prime selling point is gone! The second point might have a negative value (Who wants any attention from me, let alone attention that is undivided? Even I probably couldn't stand that and I have to spend a lot of time with myself as it is.); the third is highly unlikely to ever happen; and the fourth is at best of only marginal value. What dire straits!

The daily question for me the next few years is going to have to be this: what have you done today to ruin your life? I may be down in the count, but I am not out yet. I may still ruin my life yet!

As always, suggestions are welcome from you, dear readers. Let me know if you have any ideas!

^ ¹ Though, for some reason, a lot of self-professed hopeless romantics do not seem to find any difficulty getting their heart broken at the drop of a hat. But the explanation for that is simple: clearly they are just (hopeless) idiots.
^ ² I will spare you all the drama; it is not that compelling. If you are really interested, ask me some time and I will tell you.
^ ³ The underlying premise here is that a marriage falling apart would be much more likely to result in heart break than a relationship, even if long-term. I have to think it is true since I would probably be heart broken over the financial losses incurred in a divorce alone, independent of any concomitant emotional considerations.