“Well, basically… people sit down at computers to Do Something, not because people like Using Computers. OS X knows that and gets out of your way. Windows forgets.” She then, wisely, changed the subject and told me the story of how she came to own stock in Apple.

One day she was walking down the street and saw a sign that said “Think Different” with a picture of Albert Einstein, she thought it was neat and went home and bought $1400 worth of stock. Apple stock is growing so quickly, that had she bought this stock last year, she would’ve ALREADY made $1,060 on her investment.

Lillian bought her stock in the 90s and has made over $150,000.

(She was shy and excited about sharing this story in only the way that cute little old ladies can be. The same story from a 26 year old guy would make him a douchebag.)

We talked about iPads and laptops. She doesn’t own either. “I live alone, and the thought of spending all day alone in a house with TV, and the computer…” The look on her face as she visualized the scenario made me scared of growing old.

She said she prefers to go to the library, which was where I was headed, but when she asked if I wanted a ride, and I said no thank you, I’d rather walk, and in fact, the library is closing shortly so I guess I’ll just stay here.

I do this a lot. I am offered an “adventure” or a “larger story” and I turn it down. I can’t help myself.

Largely in this scenario it’s because I felt uncomfortable getting in the car with a stranger (for her moreso than me), but also because I was afraid this was going to lead to some scenario where we become friends, and then she dies, and leaves all of her apple stock to me. I don’t want to open myself up to that kind of story, because it makes me sad.

I told her it was nice meeting her, and that maybe I’d see her at the library some other time. However I’ve seen enough of these story invitations to know that if you don’t accept them the first time, life rarely gives you a second opportunity, it just goes to someone else, and you get a story about the time you almost did something.

Phil

1. A lady behind me called her significant other, (on speaker phone) and spoke to him, extensively, about his recent trip to the dentist. She asked about the x-rays, about the co-pay, about the waiting room, and was EXCITED to hear his answers. (”What KIND of magazines?”)

2. The guy in front of me (20s) was talking to an older woman (late 40s), sort of complaining about a failed relationship with a girl that they both know. I thought it was strange that he was really pleading his case with their mutual friend “IF I could only have ONE more day… It’s just… I still love her.”

The woman was supportive, if support looks like repeatedly encouraging a person to move on (”Do you have any hobbies?”) and then repeatedly telling a person to move on (”You should move on.”)

After 30 minutes I discovered that it was his fault the relationship ended.

After 32 minutes I learned about all the cool things he’s been doing lately.

(”I’ve been doing really cool things lately. Have you ever been to magic castle? It’s members only. My landlord is a member and he gets me in.”)

After 34 minutes I learned that the relationship ended a year ago.

35 minutes, 30 seconds: I learned he respected the older lady’s opinion a lot because…

35m32s: … the older lady is his ex’s Mom.

Lesson learned, coffee makes people batshit crazy.

Also, landlords can also be magicians.

Phil

Day 30~

A lesson about ‘Friction’ for people that aren’t knee deep in startup theory.

It’s pretty regular, in the world of startups, to talk about friction.  One of the core goals of any startup, any time you want a person to engage in new behavior really, is to minimize the amount of friction that exists between them not doing what you want, and them doing what you want.

You’ve felt friction before when someone said “Hey, you should try out this new service” and they ask for your email address and your credit card, and you think to yourself “Eh, I’ll do this later.”

Another extension of the concept of Friction, as it applies to Startups, is actually tied not just to the execution of your idea (Less Friction = More Likely To Adopt Your Solution) but the actual genesis of your idea (Reducing Friction In A Process = A Startup In and Of Itself).

Examples of this include

If you reduce the friction in inherent in…

Renting Movies you get Netflix (or Redbox).

Buying Books you get Amazon.

Well, hmm. That’s sort of setting a paradigm where reducing friction is just delivering something by mail, as opposed to making a person walk into a store.  That’s one way, but another one would be um…

Text Messages reduce the friction of contacting someone if you only have one quick question.   Or booty calls. It’s so much easier to just SMS “Come over…” then to actually have to call that person.

FourSquare reduces the friction of finding out places your friends (and strangers) liked to go, and where they were at that moment.

Pandora reduces the friction inherent to both discovering new music, and setting up playlists for parties.

The basic lesson here is you can increase your chances for success if you can reduce friction both with what your idea does, and in how your idea does what it does.

-Phil

p.s. This post happened because I am procrastinating on utilizing the Facebook API to make it easier for people to log into my startup, without having to fill out an entire registration form.

Big Bear Mountain is about 7000 feet above sea level, which, combined with the forthcoming lunar perigee means that I am as close to the moon as I will likely ever be in the course of my life.*

(Yes, if I’m on a plane i guess I could be closer, during the next supermoon.)

Vacationing alone is really nice.  What you overlook, in a 3 day vacation, is the amount of time negotiating and planning. Who wants to eat where? Who wants to ski? Who wants to snowboard? Who isn’t ready to go yet? Who needs to find a restroom?   It’s a necessary and timely evil.  A 3 day vacation alone is like 4-5 days with another person, and a week or two with a group of your friends.  You can do what you want, and strangers will talk to you.  This part is hard for me to adjust to, because I’m kind of shy. Still.

It’s a little disheartening that people are so… put off? by other people that if you’re in a group, they won’t even really interact, but if you’re separated from the herd, they’ll engage.  I always have to fight the temptation to like… listen to my headphones, or play Solitaire, to properly occupy myself.  Last night, after dinner at the Nepali/Indian cuisine restaurant I noticed one of the waitstaff staring at me.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

The answer to this has grown tricky, and I tend to try to give people the answer I think will spark most conversation.

“Florida.”  (blank face)

“Well, and then I moved to Los Angeles…” (slight head shaking)

[Have you ever failed an oral exam? Imagine that feeling.]

“…uhhh but my Mom is from England?”

His face lit up, just slightly… I was getting closer.

“…but she was born in Jamaica?”

His face lit up, completely.  ”JAMAICAAAA!”

Oh. I get it. My hair. He needed confirmation. That’s cool, I guess.  I asked him if he spoke gujarati, because I know exactly one phrase in gujarati, and honestly, the phrase is overkill, because most Indians are sorta stunned that I know that gujarati even exists.  Though the cuisine was Nepalese & Indian, the waiter was straight up Nepalese, and India is a “totally different country.” I know this because he told me as much.

So I asked him to teach me how to say “Hi my name is Phil” in Nepalese.  Normally this game is fun, but he got frustrated when I couldn’t get it right the second time, so he changed the subject.

By this point three or four more members of the kitchen staff had come out and were watching this exchange.  I am equally comfortable and uncomfortable, being the center of attention, it just depends on the time of day I suppose.

So I chatted with him a bit longer and asked (insensitively) “How did you end up HERE!?!” (I may or may not have said “In the middle of NOWHERE?!”) and it turns out that the atmosphere/temperature/weather is very much like Nepal so it feels like home, if home was suddenly overrrun with wealthy white people on vacation. (I added that last bit, internally.)

During a lull in the conversation and I noticed the Nepalese lady to my left wanted to say something so I smiled at her.  She points at my hair and says “In Nepal, only one type of person has that hair, the babas!” She then tells me that everyone loves the babas, they pray all day, and that they are very special.

Nepalese Baba

I start to tell them that I have in fact heard of the babas from two distinct places. One, a painting in my house growing up, and two, a member of the group that sang “Mr. Wendall” was named Baba Oje, but it just seemed too much for the conversation, a rude amount of unrespondable detail, so I just pretended like it was totally new, and do what I always do in conversations. I asked questions.

When asked how one becomes a Baba (”Are you born into it? Or can you choose?”) someone points out that you can choose to be a Baba.   So I tell them, “Well that does it. I’m going to Nepal to become a baba so I can feel special.” Laughter. Someone says “Well you are special.”  Which I guess could mean retarded but I have no idea.

I asked if there are a lot of Babas in Nepal, and the lady laughs and says “We have 1000 gods and 1000 religions, it’s hard to keep up.”  So I laugh, cause you can laugh at religion if they go first.

At this point the conversation had nowhere to go, and four people were looking at me expectantly so I tried to think of the most graceful way to exit the conversation, and said “Well it was very nice meeting you, how do you say Goodnight, in Nepalese?”  I did -not- look at the impatient guy when I asked this question, just the lady. Women are infinitely more nurturing than men, almost unilaterally.  And she taught me, and I said it, and there was a generally warm vibe as I left.

(This would never be acceptible if you both spoke the same language.  I would love it, but I could never, in the lull of a conversation, turn to someone I know and say “How do you say goodbye in english? Right. Goodbye.” If someone did that to me, it’d be heartbreaking.)

Have you ever played Hearts? It’s a card game where, basically you try not to end up with crappy cards, because the cards that are “bad” are points against you. However, there’s another strategy, where you try to collect ALL the bad cards.  If you can do that, you get like a billion points. It’s difficult, because people, once they find out you’re trying to do it, will try to stop you.  They will -personally- take a hit, so that you don’t get that far ahead of them.  I try not to think of how close this game is or isn’t to real life.  The strategy is called Shooting the Moon.

This is a risky strategy, because if you try to get all the bad cards, and come up short, you have essentially screwed yourself over, and will either be forced to shoot the moon again, or just… lose.

As I sit here, with the sun coming down, being as close to the moon as I will ever be, I am both worried and excited about my own analgous life attempt at lunar marksmanship.  I’m in LA, trying to do something which is improbable, an act of lunacy, if you will.   The problem is I’ve already collected a lot of the “bad” cards.  I don’t have a meaningful resume, or savings, I don’t have kids, I don’t even know that I have enough proficiency with any -one- thing to go get something that even approximates a real job.  I have essentially painted myself into a corner where I desperately need the shoot the moon, or I’m going to just be the anti Charlie Sheen, right?

But, it’s not about winning, in any traditional sense. It’s about… I don’t know what it’s about.  For a really long time, I measured my sense of self, or set goals based on the world reacting to what I do. (”I want to sell a MILLION CDs” or “I want to sell a screenplay” or “win an oscar” or whathaveyou) and I’ve only recently realized why that’s limiting.

I am a bit of a controlling person, in nature, and I don’t have ANY control over those things. I can make a CD, but who knows if it sells a million. I could write a screenplay, but ditto. And, subconsciously, knowing those things, and knowing that my goals weren’t even in my control, it seemed a little bit stupid to set those as goals.  This is sort of related to my relationship with sports.

Why put so much time, energy, and emotion, into something you have no control over? It’s just a foolish thing to do.  Because the chance of failing at goals that are externally dictated is so high and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.  So what would happen is I would start things, and then not finish them, because I’m equally afraid of failure and success. (not the only reason, but part of it)

Without being able to explain when or why it happened, over the last few (whatevers) my mindset has changed, and my goals have shifted from “Make [this] and have [that] happen as a result.”  They’ve become shorter.  I just want to “Make [this]” and “Make [that].”

While it sounds like a truly minor shift, I promise you, it’s one of the more meaningful changes that’s happened to me, in years. Maybe ever?  And it’s palpable.  I don’t know when or why it happened I just know that I feel it.

Not that I don’t have my eye open to [potential] results of some of my activities, I’m just not wed to them the way I was. It’s not how I conceive of them in my head.

Anyway. So. Yeah.  That’s all.  I want to incorporate the phrase “So now I’m shooting for the moon” but that is inescapably corny.  Every version of that idea is corny. “So now I’m close enough to reach out and touch it” (Gag) “The moon is in my crosshairs” (retch) “Better make room, now there’s gonna be two men on the moon” (Okay that one is so stupid it turns around to being funny, to me).

ANYWAY.

So, here are the things I’m going to make, this year, as the moon begins it’s 18 year retreat from me.  It’s ambitious, but I think it has to be, because in the game, it wouldn’t be shooting the moon if it was just “kinda hard.”  But the good thing about this, and what makes it different from Hearts, is that it’s not based on randomness, it’s almost entirely based on …decision making.  Just deciding to do it.  And that’s kinda cool.

My To Do List

a. write a script

b. film a short

c. launch a webpage/software

d. write songs for a few people

e. release a radio show/series

f.  publish a book

g. write a blog

Who knows what will happen after I do those things. I’m not comfortable even guessing, I am comfortable telling you that I’m doing these things.  I’m not comfortable telling you the rate at which I plan on doing them, I’m sort of shy.

I was reminded recently, that I should periodically make my eyebrows look less like

and more like

This is where it gets crazy, fellas.

The process by which they do this is exactly what you would think, if you were broken inside.

What happens is a lady, mine was Iranian, but I don’t think they all are. Anyway, the Iranian takes a chunk of wax and heats it until it is molten. Yes, the same word you use for lava. “Liquified by heat.”

So, when this substance is so hot, and its molecules are so accelerated that its physical structure has no choice but to break down and turn into a -liquid-, they spread this molten liquid on your face (The same word you use for face).

The plan is that, separated from the source of heat, the molecules of the molten wax will slow down, and turn back into a solid. The neat trick is that the solid now incorporates anything that was mixed into the molten substance. Including the hair on your face.

“But wait, how will you separate the once-molten now un-molten wax from the follicles on your face?” That’s the catch. You don’t. You see, your hair isn’t just sitting on your face, willy-nilly (a word no one uses for anything except effect), it is actually -planted- there. Like trees or plants or the Jimmy Fallon show.

The weird thing about that is that The Roots are deep in your epidermis, so they just pull on the hardened wax until it comes off, with the roots. Anyway, what you probably didn’t know, is sometimes the Iranian lady will leave the wax on too long and it just sets your face on fire. You will feel this on your pillow all night long as you try to sleep, but can’t because your flesh has been seared.

If you tell this to any female you know, they’ll yawn and say “Oh you got a burn” as if it was the time of day, and not fully respecting the fact that someone set your face on fire.

Girls are crazy, right?

Side note: Did you know if you google chinese footbinding (which everyone agrees is horrific, including people in the photo above), you can either read painful stories of trauma OR buy shoes at 82% off?

That, too, ladies and gentlemen, is ineffective branding.

I feel like one of the keys to realizing you are getting old is when you have more questions than you do answers.  What’s that beeping noise? How do I send email? How do I open this attachment? How do I do a 3 way call? What’s an iPad?

If youth is marked with (unfounded) certainty, oldth is marked with wall to wall questions, which is what this video did to me, for 3 minutes straight.

Why the ski masks?

Why is the chick from the ring on stage?

Why is there a lawn gnome on stage?

Why is everything synthesized, except for the Tuba?

Why did you decide you no longer needed the mask? Did you know that was going to happen, going into this?

Excuse me. Two lawn gnomes. Why?

Who is the white guy texting?

How did Felicia Day keep her composure enough to say “Wolf?

Why doesn’t everyone jump on Jimmy’s back?

I don’t understand. I know it’s cool, because everyone is happy and ?uestlove is on stage, but I … I’m going to go sit in a rocking chair, and watch the sunset.

]]> http://philmccarty.com/blog/man-i-am-old-odd-future-felicia-day/feed/ 0 http://philmccarty.com/blog/a-cathartin/ http://philmccarty.com/blog/a-cathartin/#comments Sat, 01 May 2010 04:29:12 +0000 admin http://philmccarty.com/blog/?p=67 Writing is cathartic. That’s what they say. My natural inclination here is to Google the word catharsis, and give a textbook definition, and then riff off of that, but instead I’m going to just go from my gut. Catharsis is the ejection of bullshit, usually in the form of an emotion, that if left inside, will fester, and rot, and ultimately undo an organism.

I haven’t been a catharting lately. This is clear because I had a dream that disturbed me so greatly that I woke up, face covered in tears. That might also be the sign of an underlying problem. Crying isn’t something I do often. Pixar movies and the occasional sad dream it seems. Maybe I need some emotional catharsis, on top of the written variation?

Why does it come back? Why does one need constant catharsis? And if not constant, then periodical. Something that is just broken can be fixed, and it’s done. There’s no need for constant maintenance. This makes life seem flawed. Like something that has a slow leak that will never be patched. Something that has a hole that will never be filled. The second image is necessary for pacing, but it also takes a step further towards a tone than I’d really rather not use, on facebook of all places, but (if ever there was a better place for this phrase, I don’t remember it) c’est la vie

(But seriously. remember how much trash talking people did about the iPhone? How awesome is a device if you buy it, knowing that the primary service (phone) will be crappy (at&t))

So. iTablet/iSlate/iPad I want one. Haven’t seen it, but I want it. So do you.

I started wondering how people make money off this kind of thing and then I realized that there’s a convenient forum for this, the stock market. So, I decided to figure out what Apple’s stock is like a week before their big january announcement, the day of the announcement, and then 6 months later.

[It's sort of a BS bit of analysis I'm doing here. If I were knowledgeable I would compare it against the -rest- of the market, not against itself. Luckily, I'm not.]

Here’s a picture of what apple has been doing for the first 6 months of every year, over the last 3 years.

So… systematically a 40-60% increase. Does that mean if I buy $1000 in apple tomorrow, I’ll have $1600 in apple stock this June? That can’t possibly be right. Someone explain this to me.

Keep in mind, this year should be more profitable, because according to this site <http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/>, which keeps track of when new/updated mac products are released, based on the average length of days before updates/refreshes this year, 2010, Apple will be updating the following products;

Sooner(next month or two)
mac pro,
macbook pro,
macbook air,
iphone

Later(summer-fall)
Ipod (touch, nano, shuffle, classic)
macbook

much later
iMac, macmini,

That’s a lot of back to school, and a lot of christmas stuff for 2010.

Someone, tell me that I’m missing something, or that I should go buy a bunch of apple stock.

I never write about this kind of stuff, maybe I should.   I don’t do the random hook up thing, and this is one of the reasons why. This girl almost killed me.

New Years, 2005.  My band is scheduled to play at a club in Destin, FL.   Big Top/Harry’T’s. Maybe you know the place?  The club is masterful, in that it is set at the basement of a condominium complex, where the owner, our boss, and friend lived.

The girl–

WAIT. I can’t give her real name because she’s googleable, we’ll call her Erin, after my good friend Erin Autin, who always reads my blogs and makes me feel talented.

(Keep in mind this is not a story about Erin)

So, earlier in the evening, in the aforementioned condo, we were hanging out, the room was bustling with activity and people having a good time.  I was sitting at a table on a laptop , when Erin, whose mutual friend brought her upstairs, saw me [maybe he's not nerdy, maybe he's just aloof!]  and said hi.

As I was prone to do at this point in my life, I asked what she wanted to be when she grew up.

ERIN: My dream is to be in Maxim.

This is not a compatible dream for me.  This isn’t even in Playboy, which though unclothed, seems less trashy to me.   This is a dream to basically be second rate masturbatory fodder.  Which honestly, isn’t that hard of a dream to attain. Most girls make this dream come true just by leaving the house.   This sounds judgmental, but… I guess I am.

Turns out she does something kind of cool for a living.  Sport Karate.

All pictures courtesy of her blog, without her permission.

She was a black belt before she was a teenager. I respond with the appropriate “Huhwha?” and she loads up some video of herself, flipping through the air doin kicks and basically being more athletic in 30 seconds than I was through the better part of 2005.   Cool.  I’ve never known someone who did kicky-flippy things, and now I do. Her sport karate also puts her in the occasional movie/acting gig, which momentarily makes me think “Well… I’m into movies so maybe…”

This way to Maxim...

but then her dream is MAXIM. I think nothing more of the interaction.

Fast forward.  Hours later. It’s now 2005 (or 2004? which year was this? anyone remember? Gabe? Jules?), and I’m drunk.  The band is drunk. We’re all very drunk.  This may or may not have been the year that the guitarist fell into the drums.

TheGirlWhoseNameis NOT Erin (this is now awkward for me and my friend Erin, but I’m okay with that.) stares at me, grinning dumbfounded as if what I was doing was in anyway more complicated than what she does for a living, which shows that she too was drunk.  The band is done shortly after midnight, and the club transforms into a hip-hop club, I’m told there’s a party in the condo upstairs.

At this point there’s a skip in my memory, which could be due to the drinking but could also be to the forthcoming physical trauma.

Suddenly, Erin and I are mauling each other.  Somehow or another we make it inside the elevator and I’m just sober enough to think “Holy sh#t what am I doing? Her dream is MAXIM.”

In order to get upstairs from the club part of the building, to the condos, you have to know the code for the elevator. Otherwise the elevator goes nowhere.  I’m drunk, so I just press the floor button. The elevator door closes.  Moments later it opens again.

Inside the elevator, we’re still doing the mauling thing. It’s awkward, because I’m 6′4″ and she’s 5′2″.   Being drunk I thought the solution was simple, I’ll just get on my knees.  It made sense at the time.

Again, the door opens, again I press the floor key, it closes.

My remaining traces of sobriety told me that kneeling and making out with this girl was stupid, so I stood up. and a few minutes later I thought “Why are we still in the elevator? Oh right someone needs to push in the code” so I stand up.

The elevator door opens, I press the close button, then I think “Hey this girl is tiny” so I spin her around, and -playfully- pin her against the wall.  Playfully. This should have set the tone.

Well, she LOVES it.  She moans/laughs, and then, instead of returning the favor, she does something which is better described as Retaliation.

In my defense, I didn’t see it move.  I think if I were sober I might’ve seen a blur, maybe.  But as it is, the next thing I know her hand is wrapped around my throat with a grip that could kill someone. Her hand speed puts Muhammed Ali to shame.

Being a male, I couldn’t really scream, for fear of killing the vibe.  It’s amazing how long a guy will try to maintain a vibe, despite things going horribly wrong.   So. No screaming, or crying, but if I’d been honest to the moment, I would’ve squealed the following:

OH MY GOD PLEASE STOP YOU’RE HURTING ME I CAN’T BREATHE.

Instead, I smiled cockily, and slowly pried her hands off of my throat, as my vision was growing dim. This girl was suffocating me.

The elevator door opened, and again I closed it, completely neglecting to type in the passkey.

I’d like to think that my defenselessness here was a result of the inebriation, and the near asphyxiation, but the reality is that if a black belt wants to beat me up, there’s not much I can do about it.  Next thing I know she spins me around and pins ME to the elevator, and we kiss.

Whew. More kissing. Okay, I can handle this. Jesus that was fast. Maybe I’m drunk. I hope she doesn’t do any–

She grabs my head.

Pulls my face toward hers.

And then SLAMS it against the wall so hard that I saw stars.

Then she said something that was not only not sexy, but also just not true. [At this point we were doing little more than kissing.]

“Oh yeah f@#k me harder!”

You better turn into a wolf before she beats the shit out of you. Wait, why does she know the guy from Twilight?

I thought she was kidding, but the look on her face told me that she thought I was, in fact, f@#king her harder, even though at best we were basically kissing and, more accurately, she was beating the living shit out of me.

The elevator door opened, and I had a momentary flash of genius.

“I think this is our floor!”

She staggered out of the elevator. I pressed the close door button, frantically entered the code HIDING from this girl, and retreated to the condo-party.

The end.

post script:  In googling her, and finding these pictures on her web page, I’ve discovered that she is infinitely more successful than I am.    That makes me sad, for some reason. Because she overshot her dream, while I dont suspect Maxim will be calling me any day now.