journal features

Happy 0x20 to me!

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2003.03.03

Happy 0x20 to me!

It was a long day, starting with brunch with my 'Auntie' Laurie (the designation Auntie used to irritate her when I was small because it suggested some aged spinster to her; somehow it stuck). We met at a pub and cuaght up. As we were leaving the place, my dad and his wife Renate called to sing me happy birthday.

When I got home, there was an email waiting for me from a woman with a well-known polling firm who wanted to use one of my photos on a report. My first potential photo sale! I responded asking for details, and it quickly became apparent that she didn't want to give me credit or pay me. But I'm going to soldier on....

Then Mr. Yoon arrived, and we played Go-Stop. It's a Korean card-game that he's been teaching me. We don't play by the full set of rules (it's incredibly complicated), and on this occasion we were playing for shots of tequila. Go-Stop is a game of concentration. Just like Ford Prefect, I played to lose.

When my mum arrived after work, we headed out to a Russian restaurant in the neighborhood for some wine, cabbage rolls, and song. It was a fine meal.

At 10:30, we held a video conference with Ken and Heidi in Vancouver, where it was obscenely warm and sunny. A long day.

rand()m quote

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

—Michael Crichton