Master Dilettante

I have been insanely busy at work and without time to write for over a month now, but this is big: P Junior entered the world today!!! 7 pounds, 4 ounces. Congratulations, P and Yi-F!!! The leading candidate name is Camilla. As in Camilla Yen. As in Chameleon.

My friend S.K. just sent me the email below. I love this kind of stuff. I’ve pasted the complete email below, reflecting my answers to the questions:

Welcome to the 2007 edition of getting to know your Friends. What you are supposed to do is copy (NOT Forward) this entire e-mail and paste it onto a new e-mail that you’ll send. Change all the answers so they apply to you, and then send this to your friends including the person who sent it to you. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little things about your friends that you might not have known.

1. What time did you get up this morning? 6:20 a.m. (I’m still a bit on Boston time from eBay Live!)
2. Diamonds or pearls? Alas, diamonds, although pearls are so much cheaper to gift
3. What two things do you always have with you? My BlackBerry Pearl and my roguish good looks
4. What is your favorite TV show? These days, I religiously watch “The Office,” “Heroes,” “Lost,” and “24”
5. What do you usually have for breakfast? Varies . . . most often a power bar, fruit or eggs
6. What is your favorite book? I seem to talk about Milos Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being a lot, but I secretly read both David Eddings’ The Queen of Sorcery and Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonsong over and over again
7. What is your middle name? I don’t have a middle name
8. What food do you dislike? Beef or chicken liver
9. What is your favorite CD? For the past month, I’ve been listening to country music phenomenon Taylor Swift’s debut album incessantly
10. What type of car do you drive? 2000 Honda Accord LX
11. Favorite sandwich? All-time favorite: Dan’s Subs #8 (hot roast beef & cheese) in Woodland Hills, California
12. What characteristic do you despise? Arrogance
13. Favorite item of clothing? My Club Monaco hoodie . . . ultimately comfortable
14. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Anywhere tropical . . . Hawaii, Thailand, etc.
15. What color is your bathroom? Off-white
16. Favorite brand of clothing? Armani
17. Where would you retire to? L.A.
18. What was your most recent memorable birthday? Can’t remember. Looming 4-0 overshadows all memories of the past and present
19. Furthest place you are sending this? London
20. Who do you least expect to send this back to you? Heidema
21. Person you expect to send it back first? Em
22. Favorite saying? “Right”
23. When is your birthday? Year of the Goat
24. Are you a morning person or a night person? Both. Problem is I can’t sleep all afternoon
25. What is your shoe size? 7.5
26. What did you want to be when you were little? A lawyer – sad, but true
27. How are you today? From now on, every day, I am always excellent!!!
28. What is your favorite candy? All-time favorite: Snickers bar
29. What is your favorite flower? French tulips
30. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to? 31 July – new Harry Potter book released
31. What was the last thing you ate? Garlic chicken pizza
32. Do you wish on stars? Yes, and not infrequently
33. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Red
34. How is the weather right now? Air conditioned
35. Last person you spoke to on the phone? N.
36. Do you like the person who sent this to you? Yes
37. Favorite soft drink? Diet Coke
38. Favorite restaurant? Sushi Nozawa, Studio City, California
39. Hair color? Black
40. Favorite day of the year? The first day of Spring
41. Summer or winter? Winter
42. Hugs or kisses? Put those two together!Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate
43. Do you want your friends to email you back? Yes!
44. When was the last time you cried? Don’t remember or won’t say
45. What is under your bed? Alpaca slippers, empty luggage, yoga mats
46. Favorite smell? Fresh baked bread
47. What are you afraid of? Death
48. Plain, butter or salted popcorn? Plain (healthier)
49. How many keys on your key ring? 4
50. How many years at your current job? Just over 3 years
51. Favorite day of the week? Saturday
52. Do you make friends easily? I don’t think so
53. What are you listening to right now? Amjad Hanif discussing trust and safety on eBay

Copy. Paste. Edit. Email. Enjoy.

Yes, yes, I know he’s busy, but, after all the hullabaloo, JH still has not responded to the “Reasonable” Dinner Time survey results. At my desk last Monday, he briefly read the post on results and immediately replied, “These people are lying.” That remark alone reveals all you need know about his objectivity.

He promised to trash my post, and I eagerly continue to await that — in the same way Vladimir and Estragon waited for Godot. I shan’t hold my breath.

JH, you write a retort in comments or send it to me, and I promise to approve it/post it here.

Thanks to those who completed the Dinner Time survey!

Now, the background: I have a standing weekly Wednesday dinner with three buddies — one person picks a place and pays each week. The default meeting time is 7:30 p.m, but our empirical meeting times have ranged from ~7:00 p.m. - ~8:30 p.m., and, regardless, the weekly picker/payer chooses.

I would prefer to plan to meet for dinner around 7:00 p.m., because:

• I leave the office before then
• We almost always start late (and I am a culprit!)
• I believe it’s better to eat earlier in the evening to have more time to metabolize the food
• I prefer that my final meal of the day end several hours before bedtime (our meals run perhaps two hours on average)
• That’s when I’m hungry and want to eat.

One of my buddies — let’s call him Jessie Heed-’em-no (or “JH”*) — in contrast, tends to leaves the office later than I do, might exercise and then eat some days, stays up later and wakes in the morning later.

No problem. He can pick his starting time and I can pick mine, right? Wrong! Last Wednesday, I had the gall to suggest a 6:30 p.m. dinner time — because the restaurant, a BBQ dive, closed at 8:00 p.m. — and met with staunch resistance from JH, the same resistance he’s presented to milder extent even with 7:00 p.m. meeting times. (Similarly, I’ll readily admit I’ve whined about dinner times later than 7:30 p.m.).

Now, in general, I respond better to sincere requests than to what I’m typically presented by JH when I suggest earlier dinner times: disparaging ad hominem attacks about my age, belittlement of my current workload and assertions that I am “unreasonable.” With regard to the last, JH bombastically asserted that, if we polled others, I would be revealed as patently “unreasonable” in wanting to eat on the early side. Thus the survey.

Thirty-five people — obviously not statistically significant — responded. Without further adieu, here are the results (click on each graph for a larger image). Read the data, and you be the judge.

Question #1: Around what time do you usually start eating dinner?

Question #2: Ideally, around what time would you prefer to start eating dinner?

Question #3: What is the earliest time you believe it is “reasonable” to start eating dinner?

Question #4: What is the latest time you believe it is “reasonable” to start eating dinner?

Question #5: What do you consider to be your home country?

For this last question 5, the four “other” responses were “nigeria,” “jason’s big round belly,” “India, since I learned my dinner habits there,” and “Italy.”

With regard to methodology, of course this survey is imperfect, because it fails to consider demographics. Parents will skew the actual and preferred eating times towards the earlier side, certain geographies (Europeans, New Yorkers, etc.) will tend to skew towards the later side, age is a factor and profession no doubt will influence results. In particular, JH argues that for young professionals in the Silicon Valley or perhaps at eBay in particular, certain dinner times are inherently unreasonable.

My conclusion, with which JH undoubtedly will disagree, is that, if I am “unreasonable,” then others, too, are “unreasonable” with me. I’ve shared with JH an initial draft of this post, and he’s already telling me I’ve entirely missed the point of all of his arguments and that my position is indefensible. To be clear, my positions, including those not articulated above, are:

• Treat your friends with civility and respect
• You don’t have to be right all the time, and you don’t get your way all the time
• “Reasonable” necessarily encompasses a broad range of beliefs, all of which are acceptable.

Q.E.D.

JH, you can respond in comments, which I promise I’ll approve.

____________________________________
*Any resemblance to real people could be purely coincidental.

I’m engaged in a debate with a friend on when is a “reasonable” time to start eating dinner in the U.S. So as not to prejudice your thinking, I won’t indicate more at this point.

To help us inform this debate, please complete this 5-question, “Dinner Time” Survey. Also, please feel free to post any comments on this blog.

Thanks! We’ll post the results once known.

Congratulations to my friends Patricia and Yi-Fang on their wedding last Saturday! The consensus observation of the guests, which I shared, is that this was a great wedding, and I’m going to ruin the memory of it, of course, by analyzing why.

• For the bride and groom, the planning period was short. They started the planning around a month in advance, which means the pain was over quickly.
• Home weddings can be very comfortable and personal. Not everyone has access to a backyard that can accommodate a couple hundred guests, but, if you do, it will work well. (The lake across the street and the vineyard next door were nice, too).



• The weather was perfect — sunny and clear but not too warm — a perfect April afternoon.
• The food was distinctive, personal and delicious. Nothing fancy at the reception, just yummy comfort food prized by the bride: catered mini-cheeseburgers, mini-corn dogs, fish & chips, chicken tenders and . . . drum roll, please . . . root beer floats! And the wedding banquet included a litany of Chinese special occasion dishes, including shark’s fin soup, lobster and abalone.



• The entire occasion was filled with humor underscored by warmth and affection. I’ve never been to a more entertaining wedding. The wedding officiant was a close friend of the bride and groom and the ceremony itself was spruced with anecdotes and edgy teasing. The toasts at the wedding were riotously funny and more roast than congratulations at times.

I spent the past weekend in Vegas for my buddy’s fortieth — yes, fortieth! — birthday. I never get tired of the city of lights, the ultimate playground for adults. Among the many memorable, disclosable highlights of the weekend:

• Cirque du Soleil’s “Love.” Thoroughly engaging, highly enjoyable show. Cirque’s latest production is set to the music of the Beatles, and is more dance performance and lip-sync musical than Cirque’s usual acrobatics and performance art. Enjoyment of Love might vary based on fondness for the Beatles; a twenty-six year-old friend thought the show was “just okay.” I listened to all the Beatles’ albums growing up and was captivated from the opening of the performance. I loved Love. Catch it at the Mirage.
• Dinner at Michael Mina. This was my second time to Michael Mina at the Bellagio and equally fantastic. This time, I had the foie gras and the lobster pot pie. I asked for two mini root beer floats — again, like last time. It’s a special occasion restaurant with special occasion prices. (If you have to ask, you probably can’t afford it . . . .) For more detail, see my Yelp review.
• Hugh Hefner and the Girls Next Door. That’s right. Hef and his trio of girlfriends, Holly, Bridget & Kendra. They were making appearances at the Palms hotel all weekend, and we saw them at Moon /the Playboy Club.

Hope you had a great birthday weekend Jorge!