Schmoozing and a new restaurant

I was asked to spend the day at a convention in Salt Lake City, recruiting programmers for T-Splines. It's pretty difficult to find people who are qualified in both C++ and graphics, although I did get one really lucky break. While I was there, I ran into Howard Tayler, of Schlock Mercenary fame. I also saw him two weeks ago in Denver, so I walked over and said hello, and mentioned I was looking for C++ programmers who were good at graphics programming. Howard looked thoughtful for a moment, then jumped up on stage and announced loudly that if anyone were looking for a C++ graphics job, talk to (pointing at me) that guy right there! He's hiring!

I got two leads from it, so I officially owe Howard one. The least I could do was a web-comic link (see previous paragraph).

The other fun thing today was trying out a new restaurant, and this one has a story behind it. About a year ago, there were two Brazilian guys in the ward, George and Lucas. I hung out with them, and was invited to Lucas's birthday party. While there, I met another guy from Peru. I mentioned that the little I knew of Peru was the food, and he asked where I was getting Peruvian food. I mentioned La Carreta, and he laughed and said that if you want real Peruvian food, you have to go to El Chalan in Salt Lake.

Anyway, today I finally tracked down and actually ate at El Chalan. It is, indeed, a little different from La Carreta (Purple Corn Juice, by the way, tastes like a cross between Kool-aid and cinnamon). The portions were enormous, and I was grateful for what little English competence the staff had. I had Pollo Saltado (chicken, tomato, cilantro, and fried potatoes in a salty/amazing sauce), and it was very good (although honestly, La Carreta is pretty good too).

One thing I thought was really sad/funny was a huge advertising poster right by the front entrance. You're likely familiar with pay-check loan companies, those societal vampires that suck financial independence from the poor by giving them ultra-high interest loans. What, you ask, could possibly be more exploitative? How about a company that gives loans to people who need to cover bail? You've been arrested, you're taken to prison, you're given a court date, you can't cover the bail cost, and... oh, just call us! We'll help you out! Oh, of course there'll be a price to pay later, but who wants to go to jail? Precisely such a company was advertising at the restaurant entrance, complete with logos of all the credit card types they accept. I chuckled cynically halfway home.

I'm still wondering what Leche Asada is, by the way. I was so full after the Saltado that I couldn't order any. Roasted milk? Really? (It's a type of custard, by the way, but I'm hazy on the details)

It's ART!

I don't know who wrote this originally. It came up in a discussion about the difficulty of reading literary criticism.

“By renormalizing the model’s waistline, Maxim Mexico takes a bold socio-political stance in the ongoing battle of the politics of representation, clearly referencing the oppressive reification of male-gaze heteronormative modes of synthesis in a semiotic blancmange of post-structural teakettle barbecue hatstand fishmonger.”

I need to go collapse in gales of laughter now. Please excuse me.

By the way, I learned several new words from this:
Reification: The process of treating an abstract concept as if it were a real, concrete thing.
Semiotic: Having to do with semiotics, which is a field of study encompassing the use of symbols and signs in languages.
Blancmange: White edible stuff. A kind of dessert.

The universe fails to disappoint

Lots of fun things happened today.

Firstly, we made it in time to get a seat at the round table with Larry Niven. Unlike the other round tables I went to, he didn't have much to rant about, so the ten of us just came up with questions and he'd answer them. Most of the people there were huge Niven fans (I think I fit in that category), while others had barely heard of him. I have a photo of him, if anyone's curious -- but it's a terrible photo, and I think it indiscreet to post it. If you want to see what he looks like, ask me.

After Niven, we went to a panel about the effects of the Harry Potter phenomenon. That panel had a Harry Potter fan-girl sitting near the front. Now, I rather think of myself as a Niven fan, but I have never achieved anything close to the level of religious devotion demonstrated by that young lady. I present as exhibits:

• Every time a Harry Potter character was mentioned, she would squeal in delight. This was not infrequent.
• Most of her comments were along the lines of "Harry Potter is the best book I have ever read," and "Harry Potter just makes me the happiest person in the whole world."
  
• She was in costume and carrying a wand. It was a very enthusiastic costume.
  
• She would happily and immediately fill in any trivial information that the panel couldn't recall ("Well, what color was the cover?" "Uh, blue?" "That's the fifth one").

That panel was a lot of fun, by the way. Harry Potter is largely responsible for a renaissance in juvenile literature. Publishers used to claim that there wasn't a lot of money to be made in juvenile sci-fi/fantasy, and the Harry Potter books proved otherwise. Since then, a lot of older books have been sent to reprint (Diana Wynne Jones was mentioned, as well as Patricia Wrede's dragon books), and sequels commissioned (such as the additional Chrestomanci books).

Harry Potter also converted a lot of children to the notion of reading for fun -- one librarian said that she had a large number of non-native English speakers in her area, and all of them insisted on laboriously working their way through the difficult Harry Potter books for their summer reading. They had to rework their programs around it -- but the kids were motivated, and they were forcing themselves to read things far above their comfort level.

After the panels, we went to a recommended pizza restaurant. We were hoping it would be good, but what we weren't expecting was genuine New York-style pizza. Yup, it exists in Denver. By this point, we'd decided that the day was campaigning for a "best day ever" award. The pizza was $2.55 a slice, so Cav and I each ordered two slices. Then the slices arrived and we realized our horrible mistake: a single slice was about as big as my head. I took a picture of one of them, because I was pretty sure no one would believe me -- that's Cav, holding part of his first slice, with his second slice on a plate in front of him.

It turned out that we needn't have worried. After about half an hour of blissful pizza nirvana, we returned to the present and discovered our plates completely empty. We both burnt our mouths a bit because it was too hot, but I'm pretty sure I didn't even notice. It was just that good. I wish we could get this kind of pizza within reasonable day-trip distance of Provo.

The next panel we attended was listed in the program as follows:

532 The Best Convention Panel Ever
Survey says: "If you put these people on a panel, you don't need to do anything else." Come see if they were right.
Connie Willis, Joe Haldeman, Mike Resnick

The panel was hilarious. They'd put it in the largest room and got a huge turnout. Connie Willis is a very, very funny lady, and the other authors got in a lot of good quips as well. Mostly, they talked about their experiences as authors, with fans, with rejection letters and so forth. One of the authors said "Um, I don't know, I've never had a story rejected" and got vicious glares from the rest of the table.

By the way, judging by the Hugos and the panels, it looks like the two people who are really popular right now are Connie Willis (she won yet another Hugo this year) and John Scalzi. I will probably be looking for their stuff next time I get books.

The last big event, as I keep hinting, was the Hugo award ceremony itself. As award ceremonies go, it was terrific, which is to say it was way less boring than watching paint dry. Writers and artists like to be terribly clever, so the commentary was entertaining. The award-winning novel, by the way, was The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon, so if you're looking for something to read, it might be worth a look.

After the Hugos was the usual wandering around and munching on things at the Sheraton. They upgraded from chicken wings to shrimp cocktail and lettuce wraps, but otherwise it was pretty much the same as all the other nights. Most of the rooms on the top floor are rented, and you can wander through and talk to people. It was sort of fun, but Cav & I were so tired by then that we drifted back to our own hotel pretty quickly.

Oh, somewhere in the middle of all of that, I acquired about a pound of chocolate honey. If anyone wants to try chocolate honey, be really nice to me. Fortunately, I am driving home, so I don't have to worry about how I'm going to carry all this stuff.

I have to go to sleep NOW

I was up late, researching all of the kafeeklatsch participants tomorrow looking for editors for Cavan to talk to (he's already dead to the world here). Anyway, while I was flipping through, I saw Larry Niven as one of the authors who's doing a meet-up tomorrow. I had no idea he was even here, and I'm kind of in awe. I think I've read at least 10 of his books, and he's definitely one of my favorite science fiction authors.

I'm a little worried that I won't get a spot, though -- I'm guessing that Niven has nigh-godlike status here. So I need to get up fairly early if I'm going to be in line on time to actually sign up for him.

Oh, by the way, there are some folks selling chocolate honey on the dealer floor. I tried some, and it's pretty good. The chocolate-orange honey was particularly nice. I'm probably going to get some samplers, but if anybody wants some (it's $3-$10 for outrageously small amounts), send a text message to my phone and I will grab extra.

I Want To Do Everything

My observation today is that life is much too short, and doesn't have nearly enough time in it for me to do all the things I want to do. Case in point: Writing books seems like fun. Obviously, I'm hanging out at a writers conference, and I just can't help but feel that these are my kind of people. I find myself wishing that I had enough time to master programming and writing fiction and music composition and cooking and a dozen or so languages. There are simply way too many things I want to do and not enough time to do them in.

Don't get me wrong--I love programming, and really enjoy the jobs and fields I've been able to work in. I don't think I'd have been as happy if I'd picked a different primary interest. But given the option, I'd rather do them all.

Sightings for the day:

I met Patricia Wrede, the woman who wrote "Dealing with Dragons" et al. She's a roundish, excitable person who bubbles about books the way Susan Ream did. I mentioned that I loved her Dragons books after one of the panels. She said thanks.

I finally got around to meeting Brandon Sanderson. We signed up for his kaffeeklatsch, which is basically a limited-attendance event where they stick 10 of you around a table (one of whom is the author), and you get to chat for about an hour. That was awesome. While I don't think he leaked anything that would violate any contracts, he talked a lot about the excitement and process of writing the latest Wheel of Time book, and also told war stories about getting his big break in publishing.

Another really good guy to meet was Jim Frenkel of Tor, one of their main editors. He had a really bad cough (I felt bad for the guy, talking for an hour and wearing out the voice he didn't have). He gave a lot of really good advice about how to get noticed by publishers--it basically amounted to building up some kind of street credit in small venues, because publishers get way too much stuff. If you can prove that someone's already given you a chance then it'll make them give you a second look--so publish short stories and get some awards! Actually, after the round table, Cavan and Chris and I ran into him again in the hall and sat down to talk for another half an hour. Cavan is familiar with the New York neighborhood where Jim grew up, and we got a wonderful story from his childhood about a time when they were pretending to be batman and robin, and actually ended up finding and catching (with a tiny bit of help from the police) some real criminals.

The number of authors here is dizzying, by the way--I think there are over 200 published authors at this convention. We're having a lot of fun!

We have arrived in Denver

We are alive, we are safe. The weather was scary--there was heavy rain, so we had to slow down a lot. We ended up arriving two hours later than we wanted, but that also means we arrived unharmed and in one piece ;-). I'll take it.

We only went through a little over a single tank of gas, so the car is definitely winning on fuel efficiency. The convention looks like it is going to be several days of awesome, quirky fun with people who are completely insane. Huzzah!

J'ai parlé français!

Sunday at church I overheard Jerry (a guy in my ward) out in the hallway speaking French. It sounded like really bad French. Jerry went on his mission to Florida, and spent most of his time in Haitian communities, so I was pretty sure he was actually speaking Creole. Most Haitians are descended from Africans who were brought in as slave labor a century or two ago. The language spoken there is a mixture of French and African languages, with a bunch of other minor influences thrown in. So out I went and said something about Creole sounding like French with a really bad accent.

Anyway, the lady with whom Jerry was speaking was actually a native of Haiti. She spoke Creole, French, and English (in approximately that order of fluency). She asked how I knew it was Creole, which led to her realizing I spoke French. Since her French is much better than her English, she brightened up and said "oh, can I speak French with you?" So we talked in French for a couple hours, and it was fun (we mostly shut up for sacrament meeting, though). My French is a little broken, but with a sufficient amount of random abuse of the language, I can talk about quite a few things. It got me totally excited about trying a French-speaking trip sometime.

I'm such a xenophile.

Bush tea is not hipster food

Thank you, internationalization. Thanks to enterprising South African exporters and their American counterparts, I no longer have to go to specialist South African stores to buy bush tea (sometimes called "rooibos," from the Afrikaans). For the unaware, bush tea is a popular South African drink. It has a mild, warm flavor that reminds me of nothing so much as hot buttered bread, and is usually drunk with added milk and sugar. It is the ultimate comfort food, and in South Africa, most folks drink it. Exotic it isn't.

That is, until you bring it here. All of a sudden, it's some kind of mysterious health food, conjuring up images of deepest Africa and beaches and tropical fruit (or whatever it is Americans associate with Africa these days--civil wars, perhaps?). Never mind that actual bush tea drinkers in actual Africa live in rather dull (other than the high crime) suburbs and drink the stuff after driving the kids to soccer practice. In this country, it's a cultural experience, a breathtaking journey into the unconquered mountains of All Things Foreign. And because bush tea has a flavor only slightly more interesting than milk, it needs to be Enhanced. And this is where I have objections.

See, most of the bush tea blends you can buy here insist on adding things to the tea. The most common addition is just vanilla, giving you "Madagascar Vanilla Red Tea" or something of the sort. That's not too bad, but if I wanted vanilla in it, I could probably have added my own (I'm a genius that way). The latest abomination, however, comes from California, from the very depths of everything hipster. And thus, I bring you:

The Wonder Herb of South Africa
RED TEA

Yes, I'm quoting the packaging. It really is this painful. The stuff in italics is my running commentary, just in case that wasn't blindingly obvious.

RED TEA ISN'T JUST RED TEA. It's tea with an attitude. Gag! Gag! You've heard of the great gift of health from a cup of green tea, now there is RED TEA which provides even more health promoting properties. Dude, Americans have longer life expectancies than South Africans. Are you serious? Reasearchers have discovered that RED TEA, an indigenous wonder herb of South Africa called rooibos (ROY-boss), It means "red bush," bro. Because it's the leaves of a bush, and they're red. Of course, you could just call it bush tea, the way English speakers often do, but that doesn't sound foreign enough, does it? is full of polyphenols and flavonoids which help protect the body from free-radicals that weaken natural defenses and eventually lead to aging and the onset of disease. Seriously? I'm drinking the wonder drug? I'm never going to get old or sick again? Man, and here was me thinking it just tasted good. Look, ma, it's HEALTHY! Studies show drinking RED TEA daily can reward you with powerful anti-oxidants that help create a healthier, longer life. And make you a lot of money, I'm sure, but that's totally incidental.

Anyway, that's all well and good. I don't care what you put on the label as long as I get my bush tea. But no, you had to start adding things:

South African rooibos is paired with the sunny tropical flavors of passion fruit and mango. Sunflowers and rose petals add unique floral notes, while hibiscus lends a tart-sweet finish. [Our product] brews into a rich garnet-hued tea, also refreshing over ice.

Aaaaaaaaaggh! Run away! Run away! I really wish I had read the label a little more thoroughly before buying this stuff, because it tastes almost nothing like actual bush tea. It tastes like some kind of slightly-sour (that'll be the passion fruit) tropical fruit monster, with the bush tea flavor mostly overwhelmed by all the extra stuff. It really doesn't work well with added milk, which destroys the whole point.

Anyway, it is possible to get plain bush tea, but you need to stay away from the health food stores. Try Smith's. It also helps if the tea was packaged by a South African firm, rather than an American one, since South Africans seem less tempted to try and make it taste more foreign. Oh, and you might try adding a little vanilla. That blend was actually pretty good. But try it the normal way first ;-).

In Defense of Scoundrels

I have a "Quote of the Day" feed, and a few days ago it fed me this fascinating little nugget:

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." -- H. L. Mencken

It reminds me of Voltaire's philosophy, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." The rights you save may be your own.

On a less abstract note, today was mom's birthday. We went out to a very good Indian buffet and followed it up with Sub Zero ice cream. Apparently Sub Zero is unique to Utah Valley, so I'll describe it.

The basic idea is that they use liquid nitrogen to mix the ice cream on the spot. This lets them do a huge variety of flavors. You can choose your base mix and the flavor to add, as well as choosing mix-ins. Then they dump liquid nitrogen into the bowl and you get a misty show from which ice cream emerges. The ice cream is weird stuff. It's rock solid and melts slowly, but also has a very creamy feel when you eat it. Mine was butterscotch and graham crackers.